


Humanity's Rage

by kadotoriku



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Eren Yeager, Blood and Violence, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Doctor Eren Yeager, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff and Angst, Gen, POV Alternating, Russian Translation Available, Smart Eren Yeager, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Titan Shifters, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 44,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadotoriku/pseuds/kadotoriku
Summary: Trost District is lost to the Titans, but Wall Rose is not. The Armored Titan prepares itself to breach the inner gate but abruptly halts in its tracks, turning and vanishing into thin air.One of the Survey Corps's raw recruits, Eren Jaeger, is one of the cadets that witness this perplexing behavior up-close. With growing fears that the Titans may be capable of human intelligence, it's the discovery of his power to control the man-eating beasts that kindles humanity's hope for true victory.(In which Eren is not a Shifter that awakens his abilities after a near-death experience, but rather someone that unlocks a power much more coveted and dangerous: the Coordinate.)Russian translation available onFicbook.
Relationships: Eren Yeager & Everyone, Everyone & Everyone
Comments: 248
Kudos: 813
Collections: Attack On Titan, Attack on Titan bests, Just sum of ma fav Aot Fic, My Favorite AOT Fics





	1. First Battle: The Battle of Trost District, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years of military training and combating cardboard standees could never have trained them for a battle against actual Titans. Eren fights alongside his fellow recruits, performs emergency surgery, and defies death in more ways than one.
> 
>  **Chapter Song:** [Vogel im Käfig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj8innVve6Y)

**初陣** **  
—** **トロスト区攻防戦** **①** **—**

“Armin... this is a good opportunity, don’t you think?” Eren takes a few steps forward, boots clacking against the roof tiles. “I mean, before applying for the Survey Corps, if we prove ourselves in the first battle, they’ll make us fresh recruits... and watch how fast we get promoted up the ladder!” He faces his friend and gives him a big, cocky grin.

There’s a second of hesitation before Armin smiles back at him. “Yeah... no doubt.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble.” They look behind themselves to see Mina put a hand on her hip, unapologetic. “But a lot of people from our class are applying for the Survey Corps!”

“You left me in the dust before, Eren, but this time, I’m keeping up! And to make it interesting, let’s see who can slay more Titans!” Thomas declares.

Eren rolls his eyes playfully. “You’re on, Thomas! As long as you don’t fudge your numbers.”

Before their banter could continue, a nearby Garrison member yells at them, “Squad 34, advance!”

 _That’s our cue_. Eren grabs his hilts and loads them up with blades. Looking back and waiting as his squadmates do the same, he raises a sword and says, “Let’s go!”

They let out their respective battle cries and advance through the air as one unit.

Eren dashes, body thrumming and heart racing with excitement. Wind picks up around him, muscle memory emulating the many exercises they've done within the district. He breathes out through his mouth, feeling jittery and agitated, and his eyes dart around for an enemy along the deceivingly empty streets.

 _What_ _do we do when the Armored Titan appears?_ He can’t help but wonder, hands clutching his sword handles tighter. He hopes that the Garrison has some sort of plan and that the Survey Corps returns from their expedition _fast_. The Garrison ordered them to participate in defending the district until all the civilians have been evacuated, but it’s obvious that they too are frazzled at this sudden turn of events.

“Wha... that’s—?”

Eren leaps off of a roof, swinging downwards. There’s distant roaring coming from the Titans, all of them advancing with only few of them actually getting killed off.

 _Where are the Garrison soldiers on the front lines?_ The only ones he can see are frantically fumbling their way around the beasts, no longer adept at using their gear and maneuvering around obstacles after many years of inactivity. “They’re even roping the middle guard into the vanguard?”

“All those Titans already...” Mina trails off, features tight.

“What’s going on? Usually, our peers in the vanguard hog all the action,” Nac says.

Above Eren, Thomas voices out their fears, “Even though not much time has passed... has the advance guard collapsed?”

Already? That quickly, that fast, so _soon_? A coil of dread tightens in Eren’s chest, a bitter taste on his tongue at the situation. _It’s not like I was optimistic, but this..._

He glances around their surroundings, trying to find where in the ever-loving fuck the other squads are when he spots a Titan perched on a house with its face twisted in rabid hunger as it eyes his squad hungrily.

“IT’S AN ABNORMAL! _DODGE!_ ”

His body protests at being abruptly yanked into another direction, away from the Abnormal’s trajectory. He grunts as his world spins and vision rushes to reorient itself, managing to grab onto the edge of roof to catch himself.

Eren turns his head just as the Abnormal wraps its lanky limbs around a tower. Eyes wide and transfixed in horror, he watches it lean to the side, revealing the prey it managed to capture between its lips.

“ _THOMAS!_ ”

The Titan has one of the blond’s legs in its mouth, unfazed by Thomas’ frantic twisting and turning to free his captured limb, and tips its head backwards. Eren gasps, mind replaying the previous events because _they just got here_ and _Thomas might fucking die_. He whips his head up to where his other squadmates are standing. “ _Move_! We have to save him!”

 _Abnormal Titans are unpredictable, but if this one moves slow enough..._ He anchors himself to a building and surges forward.

To his immense relief, he hears the others snap out of their stupors to follow behind him with mirrored urgency to rescue their teammate. Eren gets closer to the Abnormal, blades poised for the kill. He leaps across buildings, exerts power in every forceful step as practiced in hundreds of drills, and maneuvers himself in ways drilled into him by three years of brutal training to get _closer, please, don't let me be too late_ —

 _Crunch_.

The sickening, gut-wrenching sound of bones being crushed echoes through the air as the Abnormal bites down and swallows the meaty flesh caught between its teeth. Thomas' cries of anguish come to an abrupt halt, and he limply drops from the Titan’s mouth.

“ _Someone catch him!_ ”

A surge of anger boils the blood beneath his skin as Eren forces himself to go faster. The Titan’s bony body slides down the tower, its disproportionate legs stepping on another house. Reaching the beast before it can escape, he screams and slashes his blades across its nape, hot blood splashing onto his uniform from the aggressive attack.

He lands on another rooftop as Nac yells, “I caught him!”

Eren immediately rushes to where Nac and Armin are huddled over Thomas, not allowing himself to be breathe easy just yet.

Thomas is still breathing (thank Maria), but the Titan bit off his left leg starting from above the knee. It didn't bite the limb as clean as it could've, with pieces of severed flesh and muscle still dangling onto his thigh. There's a tourniquet firmly tied around his thigh, limiting the bleeding, but what Thomas needs is a narcotic to ease the pain, a fire to cauterize his wound, and to get the _fuck_ off of the battlefield _now_.

“Shit,” he mutters after finishing his assessment.

The stump is gently elevated, and he takes off Thomas' jacket. Blood trickles out slowly, evidence of his friend going into a state of shock, his body still in the process of registering the trauma. _It could be worse_ , he tells himself, _Thomas could be dead_.

Mina's voice reaches his ears, “Five-meter on the left!”

His gaze flickers to the corner of his eyes and back at Thomas. “Nac, think can you help Mina and Mylius? I only need a minute or two.” They don't have much in terms of clean cloth, but the jacket will have to do to minimize dirt and dust getting inside the wound.

There's silence before Nac makes an affirmative noise and zips away.

“Armin, if any Titans come near, tell or cover for me,” Eren says, shielding the exposed stump with the jacket and twisting its sleeves around Thomas' thigh. _We could loosen his harness, but he might need to be able to move if things get hairier_... He shakes his head and follows his statement up, “Check his breathing, his heartbeat, and if he’s thrown up in his mouth. Did he hit his head when he fell?”

“N-no, Nac caught him before he could...” Armin comes closer to obey Eren's words, turning Thomas' head to the side and resting his fingers on his neck. “He’s breathing okay and has a pulse, but it’s weak.”

“Better than nothing, or else we’ll have to do chest compressions.”

Eren grimaces. “Thomas, it's Eren and Armin. If you can hear me, please don't panic.” He solemnly notes the lack of response beyond a small twitch in the uninjured leg. No use in forcing a response.

“We're here and we've got you covered. I'm gonna help out our teammates and Armin's gonna watch after you for a bit. Armin? Hold down the fort?”

His friend nods and the brunet smiles at that.

Standing up and shooting his hooks, he calls out for the others with a booming, “SQUAD 34, REGROUP!”

There’s a distant affirmative or two, but his attention is on a frantic call for help. He flings himself into a Titan’s line of sight and catches its attention away from a frantic Mylius.

“OVER HERE, YOU FAT BASTARD!”

Eren swings out of the way of an incoming arm, the perfect distraction for Mina to fly by the Titan's nape and cut deep into its weak spot. “Nice one!”

“F-fuck, I froze up—” Mylius stammers but Eren isn't having any of that.

Grabbing his teammate's waist, he hoists the two of them up onto a house. The brunet lays his hands on Mylius’ shoulders and catches his full attention. “Listen. Now is not the time to overthink things. Thomas needs our help right now; the _others_ need our help right now. Focus on surviving. Do you understand me?”

He waits until Mylius nods shakily.

“You better now?” Another small nod. Eren lets go of him to turn around and search for their other teammates. They’re strong, they can handle this, all they need is a bit of a push in the right direction.

“...I don't think I'm cut out for the Survey Corps,” Mylius whispers from behind him, likely not intending to be heard but Eren hears it anyway.

“Don't force yourself to worry about that _now_ ,” Eren says as he spots Nac engaging with a pesky seven-meter. “C'mon, we need to regroup and get Thomas to safety. Keep your eyes out for other squads!”

Rushing to boost himself with more gas when the Titan snags one of Nac's wires, Eren swoops in to slice its bony fingers off in a deadly arc of sharpened steel. He also slashes through the back of its knees and Mylius throws himself at Nac to get him out of the Titan's way. It flails uselessly and falls face-down onto the ground. Dust flies upwards at the impact.

Eren runs up its back to deliver the killing blow.

“... _Thank you_ ,” Nac breathes out.

“Don't thank me yet! There's still more coming. Are you hurt?” Receiving a head shake in reply, Eren double-checks his blades. _Shouldn't handle them too roughly, but they can take a bit more_. “Let's get back to Thomas and the others!”

His gear hisses to life again.

The heads of a few towering Titans peak through the top of the houses, and some buildings collapse from the strain of Titans climbing on them in search of humans. _This is a fucking massacre_ , he thinks grimly, _they've torn through the middle and vanguard. Won't be long before they overwhelm the rear too_.

Amidst the chaos is the screaming of soldiers and new recruits and civilians alike being mercilessly torn apart, played with by giants driven by their insatiable carnivorous desires. He ignores those sounds, shoving them to the back of his mind because he needs to fucking _focus_ and _kill them all_ and _get the hell to Armin because since when did he stray so far_ —

Eren only has enough time to let out an, “ _OI!_ ” as a large, bearded Titan brings its fingers too close to Armin, dangling him by his jacket above its gaping mouth. _Faster, go, come on, faster_.

“ ** _STOP!_** ”

The Titan's entire body shudders, its chest rumbling as if bolstered with excitement at its prospective meal. Eren spots Mina frantically batting at her gear which clearly chose the most inconvenient fucking time to break down. He zeroes in on the Titan's hands, ready to give his all and catch his friend, slice the Titan’s fingers off one by one and make it regret being brought into this world.

—But then, his instincts scream at him in warning, internal alarm bells ringing, a shot of freezing ice and dread coursing through his body.

He shoots himself upward.

Underneath him, a small Titan jumps and bites on the space he would've passed had he not moved away. Its jaw makes an audible _snap_ as it sinks back onto the ground without its intended kill.

 _Fuck, that was close_.

In his momentary distraction, however, the bearded Titan chooses to _let go_ of Armin and drop him down its slimy throat. Eren snaps his attention back, forcefully pushing his gear to its limits.

“NO, FUCKING **_STOP_**!”

He flings himself into its open mouth without a second thought, digging a sword between its top row teeth and pressing down on its jaw with a firm foot. With speed he never knew he had, he thrusts a hand inward to snatch Armin’s wrist.

Armin's screams get caught in his throat, gulping for air in what he _thinks_ will be his last moments but actually will fucking _not_. His fearful eyes stare back at Eren’s own and, in them, Eren can see frozen mountains of earth, salty lakes that stretch further than the horizon, and fiery water that scorches everything in its deadly path.

They can’t die here, won’t die _now_.

Not when there's so much to explore, not when they haven't seen the everything that the world has to offer.

“ _Gah!_ ” With all his strength, he wrenches Armin out of the Titan's mouth.

The blond lands on the tiling with a yelp.

“EREN!”

Eren presses his foot down harder, forcing the Titan's twitching jaw down to make enough room for himself to get the _fuck_ out. Its saliva builds up around him, the nauseating stench of rotting corpses and blood wafting up the Titan's throat. He fights to keep his footing on the increasingly slippery tongue and braces himself to jump.

“Think I'm... gonna die here...?” he asks through grit teeth. The Titan's mouth wobbles dangerously, pushing against him and fighting to close itself—

“ _Eren!_ ”

The sound of steam follows Mylius' shrill voice, and everywhere around Eren starts burning up.

He feels the Titan's body start to disappear, the canal of its mouth becoming looser and the weight disintegrating from beneath his feet. Smoke clouds his vision, rising heat threatening to swallow him whole. Eren throws himself out of its mouth just as the Titan’s massive body crumbles onto the stone pavement. Heaving, he catches himself on the roof and breathes in a large gulp of air.

“Thanks,” he exhales. The lost blade he embedded between the Titan's teeth is quickly replaced, and he instantly feels better with the weapon's reassuring weight.

Nac lets out a tight, hysterical laugh. “Fuck, Eren. 'Suicidal Bastard', indeed.”

“Is anyone hurt?” He scans his squadmates’ weary faces and bodies. None of the evaporating blood on their uniforms seem to be from anything other than Titans, but they _could_ be bruised or internally bleeding... His gaze lands on Thomas's unconscious body and the sight of it makes him bite his lip worriedly.

“Hurt? No. Terrified? Abso- _fucking_ -lutely.”

Eren focuses on Armin, whose eyes are watery and frozen in a distant expression of pure terror, approaching him slowly.

He crouches down and says in a soft voice, “Armin? Hey, can you hear me?” He clasps his hands down on Armin's stiff shoulders, jostling him a bit. “Armin? Wake up!”

It’s unsettling how cloudy his eyes are, blank and unseeing as if staring straight _through_ Eren, as if his spirit is wandering a distant plane away from its body, as if staring into a chasm of never-ending darkness and reflecting its nonexistent light. He wants to pull his friend out of it before he's consumed by his inner demons, torn apart by his own calculating thoughts, consumed by the blazing heat of the moment of the battle they've been thrusted into.

Shaking Armin gets him no response. “ _Snap out of it!_ ”

“He's not responding?” Mina asks from where she's guarding their position. “Shock?”

“Yeah,” Eren confirms.

“ _GUYS!_ ”

“Connie!” Mylius cries out in relief and Eren glances over to see a different—whole, unharmed, _complete_ —squad come over to the tower they're defending.

“Holy shit, Thomas—”

“—Is stable. For now,” the brunet cuts off, waving and snapping his fingers in front of Armin. “We need to get him outta here. He’s not gonna last long without proper medical attention.” The only reassurance he has is that things could've gone way worse, way more disastrously, way _bloodier_ that the real thing. If Nac didn't catch Thomas... if Mina didn't kill that Titan... if Armin was _eaten_...

It’s at this moment that Armin inhales sharply.

“...Eren...?”

“ _Armin!_ Are you with me?”

The blond takes in a large gulp of air, gasping, his pupils dilating. He stammers and backs away from Eren’s hold, incoherent syllables and babble falling from his lips. His body shakes with repressed emotion, caught between locking up its consciousness within the safety of dissociation and releasing all its tension with large, erratic movements.

Then, he _wails_.

It’s sound he hasn’t heard since his days on the boat drifting its uncertain way to Wall Rose. A sound he’s only encountered when the refugees’ shocked denial bled away into anger after they’ve processed the sudden shift in their lives. A sound he doesn’t dare make himself because it screams _weakness_ and weakness back in the slums meant that you’re easy prey, and, if you’re easy prey, you would’ve been shanked and sold to corpse merchants for barely enough to buy a stale loaf of bread.

Eren flinches away, pulling his hands back. Tears stream steadily from Armin's eyes as he grabs his hair and pulls on it like a madman, as if plucking the strands would yield the roots of all his problems.

“You _useless bastard!_ ” Armin yells. “ _Die!_ ”

“Armin!” Eren grabs the other's hands, trying to disentangle his fingers from his hair. “Calm down, please!”

“Oh, leave it, Eren! Bet he just froze up while you guys saved him.”

Eren glares at Ymir fiercely above the blond's bowed head. “ _Shut up_! This is none of your business!”

“Look around! Both of us don't have any more time to pamper him. If he dies because he can’t handle the sight of blood, then he dies.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“I'm sorry you guys had to deal with multiple Titans all at once, but this loser shouldn't weigh you down with his incompetence. He’ll get you all killed.” Her words blunt and harsh, she doesn't even _try_ to sound the slightest bit sorry.

Lips pursed into a thin line, Eren wants to punch that emotionless expression off of her, make her understand the unavoidability of breaking down and how these moments of weakness are what makes them resilient, are what makes them stand up against oppression before their inevitable victory, are what makes them _human_.

Before he can open his mouth to retort, however, Connie beats him to it with a growl as he stomps angrily in Ymir's direction. “Hey, you stupid bitch, how about I make it so you never say a damn word ever again!”

From the corner of his eyes, the other recruits exchange uneasy looks with one another at the rising atmosphere.

“Everyone, _stop it_!” Krista stands in between the opposing forces, holding her head up defiantly. “Everyone is frazzled! I mean, suddenly, a bunch of our friends are dead or at risk of dying... of course we're upset!”

A tense pause.

“That's my Krista! After this mission is over, marry me!”

Indignation flares up inside Eren at the blasé way Ymir dismisses the situation, but he swats it away because _now is not the damn time._ They have bigger problems to deal with. He breathes deeply through his nose, doing those calming exercises that’s saved his ass more times than he can count. “Armin, you with me?”

Armin swallows a lump in his throat, letting go of his abused hair and wiping his tears onto his wet sleeve. “Y-yeah... sorry...”

There's a brief moment of quiet where Eren waits for more, for whatever Armin has in his mind, for a hint at what’s occupying his genius head, for a world-tilting discovery that’ll change his perception of everything.

But the blond remains silent, stewing in his own thoughts.

With that, Eren stands and helps Armin up onto his feet. He squeezes the blond’s upper arm reassuringly as he turns to face Connie's squad.

“What’s the situation?”

“Orders are to keep moving forward,” one of them says, gesturing with his sword at a nearby horde.

“Have all the civilians been evacuated yet?” Mina asks nervously.

“Don't know, but it shouldn't be long before they call for a retreat.”

“Where are the supply squads?” Eren taps his gas canisters. There's still plenty left despite his aggressive usage earlier, but if they’re going to keep fighting and advancing to the front lines... “Have they been sent out already?”

Connie shrugs. “No idea. We haven't encountered any.”

“What about Thomas?” Nac stares at their teammate. “We can't just leave him here!”

“Someone can carry him,” Mina suggests, “take him to HQ, maybe?”

“We should just leave him,” Ymir says unhelpfully.

“Would you want us to leave you if _you_ were knocked out?” Eren hisses, stepping forward. She raises her eyebrows at him, almost challengingly, as if daring him to fight back at her.

Too bad for her if she expects him to blow up, then, because he ignores whatever stupid thing she has to say in reply (lest he do something reckless like tackle her at such an inappropriate time), in favor of asking the others, “Does anyone need spare blades? We could borrow Thomas’ and use his gas if we run out.”

The idea of bringing Thomas to the Walls is shut down because of their limited gas and the possibility of being accused of desertion. They come to the collective agreement of Nac carrying Thomas until they can get somewhere _relatively_ safe enough and get him proper medical attention.

With that hasty discussion out of the way, the two squads merge and face the Titans head-on.

Eren’s eyes wander to the inner gate. _Is there some sort of hold up?_ They’ve had countless evacuation drills with the people of Trost and it’s _never_ taken this long. Then again, people are panicking and there may be those stuck within their homes, or lost in alleyways, _or crushed by falling debris_ —

Banishing those thoughts, he scolds himself to have some damn faith in the rearguard ( _and in Mikasa!_ ) that it'll be over quickly, swallow all his unfounded fear because he needs to believe in the capabilities of the Garrison's elite, and to concentrate on killing as many of these monsters as he can. They have their jobs to do, and he has his.

With that, he gives his undivided attention to the soon-to-be-dead Titan nearby.

Ø

Eren waves a pair of tongs to cool down the sterilized needle between its grasp. They've regrouped with the other recruits and are perched on top of a group of tall buildings, waiting impatiently for the evacuation signal and supply squads. The moment they landed near the acting safe zone, he wasted no time in popping open his pouch of medical tools and getting to work.

Soldiers typically have their own emergency first aid kits provided to them. _But it's not like the big shots’ll waste resources on a bunch of fresh meat_. His other hand curls into a fist at his own thoughts. He has to be conservative with his alcohol and medicine in case someone else gets hurt and can be saved.

They've trained for years yet the Titans _still_ managed to get the jump _and_ the upper hand on them.

If only they've had more time to prepare... or if the Survey Corps postponed their expedition... or if they weren’t so obviously sent to be sacrificial Titan fodder...

_Dammit!_

He bundles up a handkerchief and stuffs it between Thomas' teeth. The blond is still unconscious, but there's always the chance of him biting his tongue off from the pain; he might need something to sink his teeth into on the chance that he wakes up disoriented and panics.

“You're seriously doing that _here_?” Bertholdt’s panicked voice flutters through the suffocating air, colored with anxiety and fear.

“I'm not gonna let him die,” Eren says firmly as he gets to work.

For the most part, Thomas remains knocked out, save for the occasional jerk, twitch, or spasm. Sasha and Nac obediently hold him down for safe measure, even if their own faces are slightly green at the close-up view they have of the gory procedure.

Closing the wound is a mess of blood and bits but Eren's hands don't shake in the face of detached skin and broken muscle, nor does he falter when Thomas lets out a particularly loud whimper.

All recruits know the absolute basics of treating an injury and rudimentary techniques to limit bleeding and infection (such as how to tie tourniquets and use fire to seal open wounds), but surgery—surgery is a delicate, detailed practice that has thin lines between what can mean death and permanent nerve damage and the “best” case scenario. Only the most desperate of fools would attempt to do so without proper training.

Before his dad went MIA, Grisha Jaeger taught Eren many things: how to create natural remedies born from his surroundings, cheap but effective alternatives to the expensive placebos in the shady Sina market, and the art of working alongside nature's cryptic duality.

He learned to brew the most painful poisons and to create the most soothing pastes with different parts of the same plant. He was taught pressure points and anatomy, how to tear a person apart from within and how to stitch them back together again. He witnessed many births, many deaths, and even many resurrections as patients come to appreciate their mortality and walk away from surgery with the newfound drive to live their lives to the fullest.

And Eren himself has come to understand and embrace the feeling of morbid curiosity, the strange tug towards the edge of a tall building, the fixation on the macabre and inability to look away from the face of pain and suffering and _death_. That's why he barely reacts to the inquisitive stares as he does his duty, why he doesn't bat an eyelash to the sound of someone retching their breakfast out when he cuts off Thomas’ nerve ends, and why he's stoic at the handling of the unresponsive body parts.

Once he's finished the stitches and has cleaned the area around the sealed stump, he sits back, letting out one big huff of relief. Wherever his dad may be right now, dead or alive, Eren will _always_ grateful for his teachings.

The scissors and needle clatter onto the roof tiling.

“ _Done._ ”

It's not his first time working on an amputation, but it certainly is his first time working on an amputation _outside_ an infirmary or makeshift clinic. Even during his time as a refugee, he had _some_ semblance of safety and control with his dozens of makeshift tools and concoctions to help those that could pay him the slightest bit of money in exchange for treatment.

...Not like there was many that could.

His tongue gains a vile taste at the thought that he might have to do this more often. Having to postpone helping someone, or worse, having to leave the injured behind because the others think that they're are as good as dead.

“You're a miracle worker,” Sasha says in awe, transfixed on Thomas' peacefully rising and falling chest. Nac wordlessly touches Thomas’ arm, face showing off a mix of disbelief and amazement.

“No—not really. I’m not.” Eren shakes his head and reaches for his used tools to wipe them clean. He glances from side to side at the other cadets. “Thanks for the help, Sasha, Nac. Is anyone else injured?”

Reiner crouches beside him and thumps his back. “No, but you should give yourself some more credit. Other people would’ve left him to die.”

“’Other people’ are selfish cowards, then.”

A thoughtful hum. The kind that Reiner makes when he disagrees with Eren but skitters about making it too obvious and accidentally provoking his temper. “I wouldn’t be so quick to—”

_CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!_

They all whip their heads to look over in the direction of the inner gate, the distant ringing of the large bell echoing throughout the ruined district. “That’s the withdrawal signal,” Reiner murmurs and rises to his full height.

Eren shoves his tools back into his case before stuffing it in his waist bag and getting up. “But where are the supply squads? They should’ve been here _yesterday_!” He knocks on his canisters, grimacing at its depleted contents. “Are they all really trapped in the depot?”

“ _Shit!_ ” someone swears.

“What do we do?” another person hisses, both of their voices heard by all.

“...There isn’t anything _to_ do,” Jean says resignedly, his voice a flat drone. “The order to evacuate _finally_ came, but we’re out of gas and unable to climb the Wall. I guess we’re all dead thanks to _those_ cowards!”

He presses a hand to his face, curling further into himself. “I can understand their feelings—that they lost the will to fight—but they shouldn’t have abandoned their supply mission and holed up in HQ! The Titans are gathering, so we can’t get there to replenish our gas!”

“ _Okay, then!_ The only thing we can do is risk it all to kill the swarming Titans over there!” Connie exclaims. “The result’s gonna be the same if we just sit around here! The Titans will be all over us here, too! And if we keep trying to pointlessly escape, it’ll just waste the last bit of gas that we do have! Once our mobility is totally gone, then it really is all over!” He loudly bangs his fist against his tank to punctuate his words.

Jean uncovers his eye, staring downwards with an expression of defeat. “You’re using your head for once, Connie... but do you really think we could take them on with this many troops?

“Most of the advance guard has been wiped out... who among us in the Training Corps can take command of a desperate operation like that? Well, I guess that doesn’t matter, since, even with a leader, we wouldn’t be able to do anything against the Titans. I bet there are three- to four-meter Titans in the supply room too. It’d be impossible to move around in those conditions.”

 _Huh_.

Something about the way Jean spoke makes Eren’s heart _roar_ in protest. The cocky asshole he’d clash against over dumb shit, argue about the pettiest things with, butt heads with when they need some sort of way to vent out their frustrations, is raising a white flag _that_ easily? It makes his pulse race and sends a wave of anger up from his tips of his toes to the top of his head because _they’re gonna give up, just like that? Without even tryin’?_

Without realizing it, he’s already walking towards the roof Jean’s on, mind dead set on his next move.

All the fight leaves Connie at the other’s words and his shoulders drop down. He takes a shaky step back, no sign of his previous bravado. “...No way. You think...?”

A long, _tired_ sigh from Jean. “It was a boring life. I guess if it's gonna end like this... I might as well as say—”

“What, you’re _giving up_?”

Eren strides towards them with a purpose and stops on the house across Jean, who tilts his head up curiously. “Where the fuck is the Jean Kirschtein _I_ know? The one that yammers on about his beliefs and hopes and dreams even if no one gives a shit? The one that talks big and _serves_ on what he promises? You wanted to join the goddamn cops _so_ badly that you worked your ass off just to get into the top ten. Where did that big shot go?”

“I—” Jean gapes at him, crossed between bewilderment and his reflexive urge to verbally fight back.

“Listen up, all of you!” the brunet addresses the other trainees, stomping his foot down with a loud _bang_. If it’s a motivational speech they need, then it’s motivational speech they’ll fucking _get_. “You heard what Connie said. If we sit here, we’re nothing but a fucking feast for the Titans!

“Maybe you joined the military for food, for safety, or for glory. The thing is that there’s _something_ that kept you going for three years of training! We _trained_ for this! You still have gas, still have swords, still have the _privilege_ of survivin’ until now!”

He points at headquarters and makes eye contact with every single _comrade_ he sees, daring them to say a word. “There’s _always_ a choice, _always_ a chance at livin’ to see another day. The choice we have right now is rotting at the bottom of a Titan’s stomach, or advancing and taking down as many as we can!”

When he notices some of them nodding along, others lifting their heads up, and a few even _getting up_ , he plows on.

“You have something to live for, to _fight_ for! Your family, your friends, your future, _yourselves_. Will you let go of this chance when it’s blindingly close to your face? Will you let our fallen comrades’ sacrifices be in vain? Will you allow yourself to give up so easily?”

Sasha shakes her head. Armin and Floch straighten their backs. Marco drops his hands onto his holsters. Mina grins. Reiner and Bertholdt exchange looks. Jean stands up.

“Either you lie down, die, and accept the grim reality of this world, or you fight, survive, and take the chance at changin' it for the better!” Eren draws a sword and raises it up towards the sky. “So what'll it be, 104th Southern Division? Will we fight or will we die?”

“We'll fight!” a few of them yell.

He meets Jean's wide eyes and repeats his question, not breaking his gaze and silently egging him on. “Will we fight or will we die?”

“We'll fight!” Jean’s voice joins the rest. Good.

“ _WILL WE FIGHT OR WILL WE DIE?_ ”

“WE'LL FIGHT!”

“ _THEN GET UP!_ ” He spins around slowly, making sure his voice is heard by everyone. “Check your gas, count your blades, because we need to preserve them as much as possible! Loot nearby corpses if you have to! _Get ready to charge!_ ”

“UNDERSTOOD!” Affirmatives of varying volumes follow his words. The trainees scramble to prepare themselves, psyching themselves and each other up for what might very well be their last mission. Some let out their own colorful expletives towards the sky, others make half-hearted jokes to ease their nerves, and the rest cling onto the hope of making it to the supply depot safety.

In Eren’s mind, however, lingers the one question everyone seems to be ignoring: _What if the Armored Titan shows up?_

He sincerely hopes the Garrison _does_ have a plan to kill it. Armin mentioned earlier the rock they stationed near the Wall, so maybe they’re gearing up to move it with a new fancy machine?

...If he’ll be honest, that sounds too good to be true, even for him.

Is the massive boulder going to be any use if the Armored can break through it?

How long did it take for that Titan to break down the inner Shiganshina gate? He was already on a boat, being shipped off to Rose when it crashed into Wall Maria and was blocked from his view by the rows of homes. As much as Eren wants to charge at it if it does decide to show its ugly face again, he needs some semblance of a plan.

“That was some speech, Eren.”

Mina's teasing remark snaps him out of his thoughts. He blinks rapidly and brings his head up to where she's standing alongside his other friends. Whatever lingering worries he has left about the Armored Titan are quickly shoved into a corner of his mind—bringing it up now might just weigh their shaky morale down, and the damn thing hasn't even made an appearance yet.

“It'd be a waste if we just waited here to die,” he tells her, “everyone just needed a little push not to waste this opportunity.”

“Still, I honestly believed that we're all done for,” Marco admits, his voice unsteady.

“I'd probably follow you off a cliff if you make another speech and order me to,” Connie says jokingly ( _but don’t jokes have some grounding on reality?_ ).

Eren shakes his head. “I'm not exactly leader material though—”

_Thud!_

“Mikasa?” Nac startles, doing a double take at her appearance.

Connie gapes as if her appearance is some sort of sign from the heavens that their charge to the depot won’t end _too_ badly. “I thought you were with the rearguard—?”

She pays the two of them no mind, sheathing her blades and marching through the crowd of stunned cadets. “Eren!”

Straightening his back, Eren turns his attention to her. “Mikasa? What’re you doing here?” She had the chance to get over the wall to safety! She had the chance to wait for them there!

Mikasa stops in front of him, subtle lines of stress marring her otherwise blank face. Her sharp eyes scan his entire figure, checking that his limbs are still attached and that his body is mostly unscathed. “The populace finished evacuating. I wanted to make sure that you’re safe.”

Automatically, he goes to rebuke her with an, “ _I don’t need_ —”

“—Perfect timing, Mikasa!” Connie blurts out, stopping Eren before he can argue that he can take care of himself perfectly fine, _thank you very much_. He shoots Eren an imploring look to calm the fuck down. “Most of us are low on gas, but we can escape over the Wall if we make it to HQ!”

Eren swallows his annoyance. “Yeah, what Connie said. We'll need people at the front to carve a path through the Titans, d'ya think you can?”

“I'm strong.” Mikasa holds her head high. “I can do it.”

“I can take vanguard too!” Sasha volunteers.

Jean steadies his trembling hands as he draws a new pair of blades. “...Maria, Rose, and _motherfucking_ Sina.” His expression hardens and he points at Eren then to himself. “Fuck it. You win this round, Suicidal Bastard, because I’m in too.”

“Okay, well...” Eren inhales and gestures to the other cadets. Can they tell that he isn’t completely sure on what the fuck he’s doing? He hopes he gets across his need for strategic support. “...Is there anything else everyone needs to know so we can all survive? Any suggestions on, uh, formations? Armin?”

His blond friend hovering at the back startles at being called, clearing his throat nervously when the top trainees of their year turn to him for guidance. “Uh, we should stick—stick to the roofs and only use gas when necessary. Avoid Titans as much as possible, even if it means taking a bit of a longer route to HQ. Stick to small groups so the Titans don't know who to snatch. Carry the wounded and remove the gear of those without any more gas.”

Armin hesitantly glances at Mikasa's gear, then to her face. She gives him an encouraging nod.

“...A-and I think Mikasa should take Thomas’ canisters if she's running low, his is still mostly full.”

“What should we do about the Titans _at_ HQ, though?” Marco asks.

“Some of us'll need to distract them, lure them away and kill them ASAP,” Jean says thoughtfully. “Stop them from getting into the supply depot. If they've been pawing at that building this entire time, there might be a few three- and four-meters that slipped inside.”

“I can lure them away, blow my whistle at them to get their attention so you guys can go for the kill,” Eren offers.

Mikasa shakes her head. “I can do it so you can refuel.”

“You'll need back-up.” A frown.

“I agree that Eren should get more gas first, or else you might run out mid-air. There might be abandoned or unused gear from the supply squads,” Jean points out. His expression twists in disdain at the mention of the other cadets that basically left them for dead. Eren has a good feeling that someone is about to get their ass kicked and face punched in. “Or you could borrow from whoever has the most gas left.”

“Well, who'd have thought...” Reiner muses aloud.

_Who’d have thought Jean could be a great leader on the fly, huh?_

Sasha summarizes, “So we charge at the depot, Eren and Mikasa lure as many Titans outside as possible as a distraction, we kill those Titans, we kill any and all Titans in the storage room, get our supplies, then leave?”

“It sounds so _simple_ when you put it that way, Sasha...” Groaning, Jean massages his forehead. “But that's about the gist of it... is every one of us down?”

They all nod, so he continues, “Alright. Eren, think you can assemble and inspire everyone with your preachy words again?”

The fact that Jean used his first name instead of _Jaeger_ twice in this conversation doesn't slip by his notice, but he doesn't bring attention it, instead choosing to bask in the strange feeling of warmth under his ribs. Eren nods, squaring his shoulders.

“Of course.”

Ø

_Move. Move! MOVE!_

Slicing off a Titan's sticky fingers and diving under another's flailing arm, Eren risks a glance to the cadets behind him. He's not _that_ hopeful that they'll _all_ make it to the supply depot, but he can't help but worry for them either way.

“HURRY! FOLLOW EREN AND MIKASA!” he hears Jean holler. “Anyway, let's make this a short, decisive battle! And get to headquarters before our gas runs out!”

Eren lets Jean do his thing and focuses on detaching a stray elbow. He kills another one whose nape is wide open and keeps _moving, jumping, running_ along the rooftops. The supply depot is still too far away, and plenty of Titans are starting to get attracted to the flock of exposed cadets doing a mad dash towards it. His blades continue to steam from the never-ending supply of Titan blood, and he had to change into a new pair when they dulled after taking down a particularly annoying Abnormal.

He clenches his jaw, fighting off the wave of exhaustion looming above him. His body threatens to give out, cave in and crumble under the pressure of _staying alive_. But he has to keep going, has to keep persevering, has to keep _fighting_ because giving up is giving _in_ to fear and allowing himself to be enslaved to the status quo.

“ _Fuck._ ” Eren gets a clearer view of their destination up ahead. Sweat trickles down his forehead and clothed back at the sheer volume of Titans surrounding it.

The supply depot is _swarming_ with them, the mindless monsters congregating around its perimeter and squeezing the building between their warped, oversized bodies. Windows are shattered and pieces of its once glorious stone walls crumble underneath the Titans’ ministrations as they search for the humans trapped inside.

“ _WAAAH!_ ”

He skids to a stop and Mikasa does too, sharply glancing back and searching for the source of the screaming. One of the cadets has fallen onto the ground, his hooks still anchored onto a building and propeller coughing up measly amounts of gas. Eren doesn’t have enough time to react, too far to intervene as the nearby Titans zero in on Tom, a short speedy one picking him up like a toy.

“Tom! We’re comin’ to get ya, buddy!”

“DON’T!” Jean warns the other trainees, “ _It’s too late—!_ ”

_Squelch!_

_Smash!_

Tom’s head gets bitten off, and his friend gets snatched mid-air in his doomed attempt to rescue him. Another girl gets caught in the fray; her arms spread out by two different Titans whose jaws are wide open to feast upon their captured prey. Her screams for mercy are heard but go unanswered. Soon, a tall, lumbering Titan comes close too, crouching and stealing his share of human flesh.

Mikasa has a tight grip on Eren’s sleeve, tugging on it insistently when he moves to help them. He isn’t close to Tom or any of his friends, but that doesn’t mean that they deserve to _die_. Eren growls under his breath, directing his glare at his tanks.

The surrounding recruits can only stare at the horrifying sight, perhaps visualizing themselves as the ones unfortunate enough to get caught in a gear malfunction. They’re trapped within their own transfixion, cycling between being grateful that they’re not the ones getting eaten, feeling guilty that they _are_ grateful, and regretting not doing anything at all.

“ _NOW!_ ”

It’s _Jean_ who gets his ass in gear first, hastily snapping out of his daze.

“Head straight for HQ while the Titans are occupied over there! Now or never! Either way... if we run out of gas, it’s over!” He runs forward, jumping off a roof without an ounce of his previous hesitation. The other delirious cadets stare at one another and continue moving too, following his example to maneuver through the other giants.

“Everyone, _charge_!”

It takes another insistent pull from Mikasa for Eren to look at her and away from the bloodbath. He nods stiffly, setting aside the guilt and self-blame for later, and they keep advancing.

As he puts down another Titan in his path, he becomes hyperaware of the way his heart collides roughly with his ribcage when a Titan swats its hand a hairsbreadth too close to him, the way he simply _knows_ through honed instincts to spiral through the air to avoid a lanky limb, and the way the sword hilts feel rough and hot and _real_ in his aching hands.

Is it bad of him to think of the feeling of battle as... _liberating_? Is that the proper word? It gives him a sense of _purpose_ , in a way. It's as if he was born for the battlefield, to push against their enemies and thrive in victory of any scale.

There’s destruction and noise and chaos around him, but what else is there to do besides keep pushing? Keep fighting? Keep _surviving_?

Tom’s death won’t be in vain. The countless soldier, recruit, and even _civilian_ casualties won’t be in vain. The deaths of the nameless people that have laid down their lives or had theirs stolen will not be in vain. Not if he can help it. He swears, promises, _vows_ to hold the memory of the fallen's sacrifices in his heart.

Either Eren will live to see the Titans’ total annihilation, or he’ll die a martyr for it.

Headquarters is steadily coming closer and closer, but his tanks are on the verge of giving up, even if there are still plenty more Titans left to kill. His propellers' whizzing quiet down as he utilizes his momentum to accelerate further. Eren sets himself on getting a new set of canisters _fast_.

Mikasa shoots off from his side to slay a few more, putting Thomas' gas to good use as she soars to take down two Titans in one fell swoop.

He aims himself towards a window, curling into a ball and shielding his face.

_SMASH!_

His lower legs take the brunt of the impact. The glass shatters around him and he does a roll as he lands inside the room. _Goddess, I made it!_

Eren unloads his empty canisters immediately, standing up and scanning through the empty office as the other trainees come crashing through the other windows. Rows upon rows of empty desks... Bookshelves... Office supplies... No signs of any abandoned gear. He prays someone else has a useable amount of gas left.

“E-Eren, take my tanks!”

Mylius stumbles towards him. “They’re around less than half-full, I got them from—” He cuts himself off with an awkward noise, head bowed and concentrating on dislodging the two tanks. _I got them from a corpse_ is probably what he intended to say, and Eren understands his reluctance to say it out loud.

He thanks his teammate and taps on the given canisters, finding what might be enough to attract and kill a fair number of Titans out there. Eren distantly hears Jean shouting at someone for being a coward—presumably a member of the supply squad—and braces himself to leave. The others have got this handled.

His blades and gear at the ready, Eren charges towards a window and jumps through it.

Ø

He finds Mikasa pretty easily, her body a graceful whirlwind of deadly steel against the Titans that dare come close to her blades. Eren slices through a thirteen-meter’s weak spot and meets up with her on a nearby roof.

“Mikasa, I’m gonna try an’ lure ‘em here. While they’re distracted with me, bump off as many as you can. Got it?” She nods. “I bet the others don’t have any gas left, so we might be on our own here. Are you still good?”

“Yes, and I won’t let any of them near you,” Mikasa declares.

“Alright, I trust you on that,” Eren says. If he can trust her to do one thing, it’s being a badass, even if her prodigal skills admittedly make him a bit... envious at times.

She gets into position on a roof a bit further away, crossing her swords to signal that she’s ready when he is.

Okay.

He just has to make himself more appealing for these oversized monsters than the people barricaded inside the supply depot. He just has to find a way to distract them while not accidentally summoning an army towards their location. He just has to not die while doing so.

Sounds easy enough.

He cups his mouth with a hand. “OVER HERE, YOU FUCKING TITANS!”

Some of the short ones come waddling under the tower he’s on, and a few of the tall blind ones do too at the sound of his voice.

Eren digs into his pocket and takes out his issued whistle. The tiny wooden things are typically nothing but distractions when you have to listen and coordinate with teammates. Despite that, they’re a great diversion when attracting Titans is a necessary evil.

He puts it to his mouth and blows.

A sharp, high-pitched sound pierces through the air.

Not loud enough to summon every Titan within this goddess-forsaken district, of course, but just enough to call a few more of the ones crowding the depot. Mikasa takes down a few of the disobedient strays, waiting on standby for the perfect moment to get the rest of these lumbering beasts. She looks cautiously at him, not even visibly haggard after all the fighting she’s been doing.

Eren breathes in again, willing the rest of these animals to notice him so Mikasa and him can kill them all and get this over with, pretty fucking please. He pockets the whistle to scream at them again.

_Please work._

“ ** _TITANS! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM HQ! COME HERE!_** ”

A frosty chill runs up his spine, tingling sparks igniting his bloodstream and making the hair on his arms stand up in attention. The Titans crowding around headquarters turn to him, their eyes gaining an eerie look to them, almost glowing amidst the smoke of the surrounding steaming corpses.

 _H_ _oly fucking breach of Wall Maria_.

The Titans rush to the tower he’s on top of, clamoring atop each other to get there the fastest, and Eren jumps off like someone set his ass on fire because the structure is _not_ going to last long under their assault and not even _he_ is stupid enough to stand around like a dumbass.

Mikasa and him waste no time in disposing the Titans while they’re distracted. They cut off limbs and slash through napes like it’s nobody’s business, and the Titans barely react as their bodies slam into buildings, shaking with mismatched body coordination and ending up collapsing atop one another. The monsters topple over like frail towers of cards against harsh winds, having a difficult time in focusing on the two humans quickly cutting down their numbers.

A part of him wonders why they’re so pliant under his and Mikasa’s assault, why their hands twitch and jerk as if having second thoughts to reach for them, why they stand almost as still as clay sculptures meant for display, but he supposes that all Titans display aberrant behavior one way or another.

There’s still a lot that they don’t know about those monstrous beasts, after all.

Eren takes down one last Titan before it can ram into in the supply depot. He presses his back against the stone wall he’s dangling from, panting heavily from the exertion and eyes watering from the floating steam. His entire back is drenched in sweat, the chilly weather doing nothing to combat its sweltering temperature. “Did we get all of ‘em?”

“I think so,” comes Mikasa's answer. She scans their surroundings from the top of a building. “Most of the big ones are too far away, none of them are heading here.”

He opens his mouth to speak but what comes out is a choked noise when his vision suddenly blacks out. His head spins from a sudden onslaught of dizziness at the too-bright light. Eren slaps a hand over his eyes, massaging his eyelids and forehead in an attempt to regain his bearings. His ears ring lightly, head light and his blood draining from his face.

“...Eren?”

Biting back a creative curse, he uncovers his eyes to see that Mikasa has anchored herself near him and is staring at him worriedly.

Suddenly, the world isn't as overwhelming as it was a few seconds ago, the colors of their surroundings no longer blinding, the sound of the gentle wind no longer roaring, and the weight of the sun no longer overbearing.

He forces himself to relax.

“Sorry.” Eren shakes off her concern. “I'm fine, Mikasa. Let's head back already.”

They reenter the headquarters’ offices, but only after Mikasa gives him a dubious look. Thankfully, though, she does not push. He zips in through a broken window with Mikasa in tow, landing on the piles of scattered papers.

The sound of turning mechanisms, chains grinding and scraping against the walls, echo through the deserted corridor. The two of them walk towards the source of the hushed chatter, down the main stairwell where they find everyone assembled. There's an extremely pungent smell of burned wood and metal.

His eyebrows rise up when he realizes what exactly they're doing.

“ _Guns_?” Eren blinks, a touch bit incredulous and curious as to how exactly they’ll fight off the remaining Titans with dusty MP bean-shooters. He surreptitiously wipes his clammy hands on his pants, fingers tingling uncomfortably at the movement.

Amidst the recruits stabbing gunpowder with their ramrods into the muskets, Armin and the other members of the top ten are huddled together. Eren's too far away to hear and see what Armin's telling the others so anxiously, so he mumbles a few _excuse mes_ as he makes his way over to his friend.

“...The seven people with the most athletic ability probably have the best chance of striking home, so they'll do the job...”

“Mikasa! Eren!” The first one to sense their presence, Sasha’s eyes brighten amidst the dim candlelight. She waves enthusiastically, her whisper-yelling catching the others' attention.

Marco turns to them too, and he smiles in relief. “You two are alright.”

Mikasa nods affirmatively before reporting, “There aren't many other Titans left nearby, but I think some teams should be on lookout in case an Abnormal or a horde comes near.”

“Then I think someone should...”

Jean scoffs, startling them. “Let me,” he says impatiently.

Without waiting around to see the shocked looks of his friends, Jean stands up straight and calls for everyone’s attention with one loud clap. Some of them flinch at the noise.

Complete silence.

“Does anyone still have gas in their tanks? Mikasa and Eren have wiped most of the Titans out, but better safe than sorry. We need people to guard the perimeter. Groups of two, back-to-back, stationed around the roof and wherever the hole to the depot is.”

There's an air of fear and apprehension at having to go outside again, but a brave few eventually come forward to volunteer. Eren tries not to make his staring obvious, genuinely amazed at how Jean takes up the leadership role so _well_ as he sends off the chosen cadets with wishes of good luck and good skill.

Meanwhile, Mikasa kneels down to get a good view of the schematics Armin has laid out, and Eren leans to look over her shoulder.

She patiently inquires, “What’s your plan for the supply room?” _Your_ _plan_ and not _their_ and not _the_ because Armin deserves all the credit for whatever genius plan his mind concocted on the fucking fly.

“U-um... first of all, I'm sorry because, as I said, the seven most athletic people here have to bear the burden of everyone's lives on their shoulders...”

“No problem,” Reiner reassures.

“The risk's the same no matter who does it. If one fails, everyone dies,” Annie states matter-of-factly.

“Go ahead, Armin,” Eren says.

Armin shifts in place, visibly disbelieving of and unused to such encouragement. “...Well, as you can see, we have these blueprints and these old MP rifles.” He gestures to the detailed illustrations of the rafters and then to the guns the other cadets are loading up.

“The idea is for the seven most adept and agile of us to kill the seven three- to four-meters in the storage room...”

Trying to visualize himself and the location, Eren listens attentively as Armin reiterates his brilliant strategy. The conveyor beams are wide enough for one person to run across. It'll be another balancing test to get into positions quickly before more Titans come pouring in, and another challenge to jump off at the right position to strike the monsters' vital spots.

He glances down on his hands, wondering why in Maria's name are they shaking.

Opening and closing his right hand, Eren turns his palms over. Restlessly, he shifts his body weight between his two feet. The cotton of his shirt is soft between his fingers when he pulls on it, the air simultaneously freezing cold and scorching hot inside his lungs when he breathes in. He almost expects to see a small vapor cloud escape from between his lips when he breathes out.

Mikasa tilts her head back at him questioningly, and Eren stills in his fidgeting. He plays it off as excitement catching up to him, pointedly avoiding meeting her gaze before she blows his behavior out of proportion. He crosses his arms, stands up straight, and rhythmically taps on his elbows, jaw clenching at the peculiar urge to yawn at such an inappropriate time.

“We've gotta go with it. There isn't... to... thing else...”

He cocks his head, pressing his lips together to mentally capture Marco's words within his grasp. They flutter from between his figurative fingertips, the parts he _does_ manage to catch are incomprehensible and almost like gibberish to him.

His sense of hearing flickers and his ears strain to pay attention, to comprehend, to go over what he needs to do because they're counting on him, and—

“...think we're all tapped... of ideas. So we just need to... selves... one... heart... and...”

—It becomes quiet.

Eren lets out a gasp.

His knees buckle under his weight.

The world turns sideways.

_Thump!_

“Eren!”

“Oi!”

“Holy shit!”

“Is he okay?”

His back collides with the hard floor, a pained groan escaping his lips. Everything goes _dark and bright and dark and bright_. He shields his eyes with one hand again and winces at the burning heat.

_Why am I so tired?_

He’s done way more during training and Shadis' sadistic obstacle courses, so what gives? Strong hands nudge him gently, coaxing him to move somewhere. Eren bats them away with his other arm and tries to sit up despite his shaking legs and aching abdomen.

“ _Fuck_ —sorry, guys, I still can... still can—”

“Don’t be stupid, Jaeger,” Jean’s says hotly from somewhere far far away as Eren is pushed back and his head is laid on something soft. “Calm the fuck down before you kill yourself.”

“...So we're back to Jaeger now?” Eren asks breezily.

There’s light snickering politely disguised as a cough and the sound of a person getting kicked roughly.

“Is he hurt?” Sasha asks, concerned.

 _No_ , he wants to reply but what comes out is a pathetic whimper, so he shakes his head instead to pacify the others. “'m fine...” Fingers lightly nudge around his body nonetheless, searching for any hidden wounds like he’s too stupid to treat himself.

“You should sit this one out,” Reiner's comforting voice insists. “We've got this, you've done enough already.”

Eren stiffens at the prospect of sitting prettily while the others risk their lives, weakly fighting back against the people insistently tugging off his jacket and taking off his scabbards.

No way is he letting the others do this without him because one of them could miss or get hurt or get _eaten_ —

“Eren, _please_ ,” Armin pleads.

Whether he halts consciously or instinctively is lost to him, because what matters is that he eventually stops struggling.

See, Eren trusts his friend and his judgment implicitly, and the brunet _does_ have the capability to know when it's time to pick his battles and count his losses. He knows when to bow his head to a high-ranking soldier, when to summon his patience to find an enemy’s weakness, and when to preserve his strength for a future attack.

Biting his tongue before it could say something stupid, he internally scolds himself that he'll be a burden to the others if he fucking misfires or doesn't kill his Titan because of a dizzy spell.

He willingly surrenders, allowing himself to be laid again on the ground, with a displeased but begrudgingly accepting grunt.

“Good luck...” he grumbles, then raises his hoarse voice to make sure they all can fucking hear him. “... _And don't die, assholes._ ”

Someone laughs.

“Yep. Eren's definitely uninjured,” Connie sounds amused.

More shuffling and footsteps around him. A person offers to watch over him to placate a fussy Mikasa.

There’s the rumbling of the lift as a cadet yells that it’s ready, and another confirms that their guns are locked and loaded.

Armin says something to him that he doesn't understand but that's okay because his voice is a soothing presence either way, lulling Eren into a state of wary rest. There's a vow that they'll be back, and a light jab at him for being so eager to run towards and work himself to death.

With his friends and comrades leaving to take down the remaining Titans, Eren huddles into himself and surrenders to the temptation to indulge in some blissful rest.

Ø

Eren wakes up on his own accord, ears picking up on the distant whoops and excited cheers of the others. _Looks like Armin’s plan’s a success_ —not that he doubted his friend at all, obviously. He stretches a few knots in his neck and joints, groggily opening his eyes and sitting up.

A power nap truly does wonders to the body.

“Rise and shine!” 

He focuses on Mina, who’s coming towards him with an extra pair of canisters. “How’s everyone?”

“Armin’s plan was a success!” Mina grins with contagious joy before it melts into concern. “How are you, though? You scared us there for a moment, falling over like a sack of potatoes...”

“I’m feelin’ better. Just overfatigue.”

“Don’t push yourself so hard again, alright? You can’t rise up the Survey Corps ranks if you’re dead!”

“I’m not gonna die _that_ easily.” Eren rolls his eyes. He straightens his spine and stretches his arms. Nice to see that headquarters is still standing and has not been reduced into a pile of rubble while he was off catching Z’s.

“I’ll hold you accountable for that! I’m going to tell Mikasa that you’re awake. You better put on your gear so we can hurry and scale the Wall.”

Mina takes off after he nods, descending down into the supply room to look for the other girl and leaving Eren alone in the stairwell.

He weighs the tanks in his hands, pleased at their full contents. Standing up on wobbly legs, he works quickly to reattach his scabbards to his thighs and connect the gas to his propellers. A quick button press is enough to confirm its working status. He pats down his gear, medicine pouch, and harness straps to check for any last-minute changes or fixes.

When he finds none, Eren ascends the stairs to reach the offices.

_Better get moving._

He jumps out a window and shoots himself upwards to get a good view of their area. He lands on a terrace, hearing the other trainees behind him head straight for the Wall.

Disintegrating skeletons lie all over the streets, steam rises from the Titans' decaying bodies. There doesn't seem to be any other live Titan in the headquarters’ vicinity, which _should_ be reassuring but worries him instead. Eren peeks over the parapet and gazes all around the district and towards the breach.

_Is this the calm before the storm? I should be happy that we got gas, should be headin' back to Rose but so what if we hold off the invasion? We can fight back and kill these regular Titans all we want but..._

“...What do we do if the Armored Titan showed up?” he asks out loud, directing his question to the owner of the footsteps behind him.

“Pray for a miracle.”

Eren turns to face a grim-looking Bertholdt and tilts his head.

“Think we can kill it?”

Bertholdt shakes his head. “You might get killed.”

 _But I survived facing the Colossal!_ Eren almost says, before reconsidering it. This is _Bertholdt_ he's talking to. The background-hovering worrier and empath despite his outward nervousness and shyness. Older brother figure that's silently there when you need a comforting presence. He might just get a heart attack right then and there if Eren brings up his encounter with the sixty-meter.

“...Were we seriously not given _any_ instructions on what to do if it comes?” To be quite honest, the assembly with the Garrison was mostly a haze of panicked yelling and crying in Eren's mind. They were grouped together on a whim, given their positions, then dropped onto the battlefield with the orders to lay down their lives if they have to. Nothing else. Not a single mention of the two mysterious Titans that tore down the Walls as if they’re made of wet paper.

“No, but didn’t—didn’t the Garrison say even cannons were useless against it?”

Pause.

“...You’ve a point,” Eren begrudgingly concedes to that fact.

Who knows what else that Armored bastard could have up its sleeve? The Colossal’s steam can probably turned him to crisp if he’s exposed to it for too long, and the damn enormous thing somehow _vanished_ into thin air before he could kill it.

“Eren... during the assembly, some people said you—you went on your own after the Colossal.” At Eren's slow confirming nod, Bertholdt says, “Please don’t... don’t go after the Armored too.”

He frowns, turning towards the direction of the inner gate. “I can't—”

Bertholdt wraps his fingers around Eren’s wrist before he could react, squeezing it pleadingly. Had it been anyone else that did that—an enemy, someone not as close to him, a _stranger_ —Eren would've shanked him. “Promise me, Eren. Look out for yourself for once. Don’t be a hero.”

“I’m not a hero,” Eren denies, gently pulling his hand back. “I’m a soldier.”

“ _Still...!_ ” the taller insists, waving his hands to articulate his frustration. “Don't throw away your life for your own self-righteousness!”

“ _Huh_? It's not self-righteousness, only my duty. Either I kill it or die trying. It's what we've trained for, isn't it?”

“That's the point, you could _die_ —”

“Everyone can die if I don't—”

“Then, I'll go with you!” Bertholdt announces.

Eren splutters at that, alarmed. “Wait—you don't have to—!” He almost chokes on his own spit. The elder shouldn’t risk his life because of something that Eren wants to do for _him and the others_. The Armored Titan is dangerous and who's to say that Bertholdt wouldn't get hurt ( _or_ _killed_ , a traitorously pessimistic part of his mind whispers) in the process?

“So? Do you have a plan?” Bertholdt raises an eyebrow at him, hand sticking a sword hilt into a blade.

This gets Eren's gears spinning and mouth running. No, he doesn't have a damn plan yet but surely the Titan has a weakness that they haven't discovered yet. All Titans die when their napes are struck, right? One meter by ten centimeters. While it's busy preparing to charge at the Wall, he can sneak up behind it to strike. Big thing might need a build-up to gain speed and move around.

Eren goes to stop Bertholdt, saying, “Yeah, but **_you shouldn't_** —”

_Exposed bright crimson muscles. A Titan biting down on a frail human body. Blood splatters all over the Trost pavement. Flying debris and tiny shrapnel. Shattered glass and trampled corpses._

_Burning, sweltering heat. Clouds of steam consuming everything in its path. Screams of agony cut off as vocal cords shrivel up. Skin darkening and peeling off as if feasted upon by an old plague._

_Jean crushed under a large foot after pushing someone away. Bertholdt's head exploding between sharp teeth. Mikasa quartered and her limbs severed by a horde. Armin swallowed whole, falling into a bearded Titan's stomach. Thomas succumbing to infection, left behind by the panicking masses. Reiner stabbed through the heart by a collapsing building. Gordon decapitated by a stray wire—_

“—ren? Eren!”

He wakes up.

Snapping his eyes open, Eren meets Bertholdt's wide ones. Firm hands hold the brunet up, and it takes more time than he likes to get blood circulating in his legs again. He unconsciously leans into Bertholdt’s support.

_What the fuck was that?_

Inhale. Exhale. In. Out.

“Are you with me?”

Eren pulls himself from the taller’s chest, breathing through his mouth to rectify his sudden breathlessness. Bertholdt hesitantly lets him go after he bats his hands away. “I'm fine,” he answers mechanically, “just need a breather.”

“Right...” Bertholdt says, clearly not buying into his bullshit.

They both perk up at the sound of someone else landing on the terrace.

Mikasa nods as a greeting to Bertholdt, her dark scarf billowing in the wind. She has two new blades drawn, body posture rigid and ready for battle. “Eren, are you ready to go?”

“I mean, yeah, I am, but—”

“—Eren had another fainting episode,” Bertholdt snitches.

Three things happen at once:

Eren turns to the taller, betrayed. Mikasa turns to him, serious. Bertholdt turns to the side, avoidant.

“ _Bertholdt!_ ” the brunet hisses.

“We're going to the Wall. Now,” Mikasa says in a voice that leaves no room for arguments. She marches over to grab his arm, but he fights to wrench it away from her grasp.

As if he didn't already get Eren into enough trouble, Bertholdt reveals, “Eren wants to fight the Armored Titan. _Alone_.” The emphasis on _alone_ has Mikasa narrowing her eyes seriously.

“No.”

“Mikasa—”

“Eren, you've collapsed _twice_ already! You're in no condition to fight anymore, especially against the Armored Titan.”

“I can handle it, I'm _fine_! I rested while you guys took back the supply room—”

“But you didn't rest _enough_ —”

“—I think,” Reiner interjects, casually walking towards them with a lighthearted swagger, “we should all head for the Wall. Listen.” He gives Eren a look that makes him shut his mouth before it could catch flies. “What if you faint while fighting a Titan? Or disassociate mid-battle? What about if the Armored _doesn't_ show up? Think about it, Eren. Maybe the Garrison is gearing up their cannons and elite squad for the worst case scenario right at this moment.”

He mulls over this and has to admit that Reiner is making a lot of sense. Mikasa shoots Reiner a look of eternal gratefulness while Eren’s busy thinking it over. Realizing that this is a losing battle, Eren sighs and backs down.

“...Okay, fine. Has everyone already left, though?”

“Mina, Annie, and I were helping a few others fix their busted gear, but I think most of the others made it to the Wall,” Reiner replies.

“What about the injured? And you guys?” Eren asks.

“We'll follow once everyone's gone,” Bertholdt answers, fingering the triggers of his sword hilts. “Thomas was... was still unconscious when Nac and, uh, Mylius carried him away.”

Eren sighs in relief and Mikasa pulls on his hand after he’s presumably satiated his curiosity. “We've wasted enough time, we should go.”

“See you guys there,” he tells Reiner and Bertholdt. “Don’t die, you two.”

The two of them nod, Reiner raising a hand as a gesture of goodbye. He has a wry smile on his face as if Eren just told him an incredibly hilarious joke—which... might actually be true since they’re the second and third of their division, for Maria’s sake.

Either way, these two never make promises they never keep, whether it be offering an alibi when someone sneaks into the city to smuggle contraband, or sharing their rations after losing a bet, or performing a dare to streak across the training grounds at midnight.

Anchoring himself to a tall building, Eren propels himself towards the Wall.

Ø

He and Mikasa don’t encounter many Titans on their way back to the inner gate. Their route towards the Wall is mostly silent, broken only by sounds of gas emission, reattaching their hooks, and the occasional breaking off to kill a Titan. Eren spots a group of trainees ahead of them that are enthusiastically zooming past Titans towards safety.

As they get closer to Wall Rose, Eren can see small dots atop the Wall. _Garrison soldiers_ , he realizes, _they’re waiting for any survivors_. If he isn't holding on to his swords, his hands would've clenched into tight fists because why didn't they help the stranded cadets? Did they truly expect none of them to survive?

Mikasa side-eyes him, likely formulating her own plans to kidnap him and Armin into a remote village far away from the Titans if their worst fears come true. It's not like he doubts that she _might_ be able to pull it off, it's just that the thought of leaving everyone else behind to fend off the monsters makes his tongue go dry. He may want to explore the world, but he's not a _coward_ to leave others to do the dirty work.

He looks back at the supply depot, the building now obscured by the many tall homes and houses. Goosebumps prickle against his skin underneath his jacket, and he mindlessly runs a hand over his arm. Eren shivers at the foreboding feeling when he's temporarily blinded by a bright light.

A large crack of yellow lightning sears through the sky.

Then—

_BOOM!_

Eren is flung through the air as a shockwave spreads outward from the where the strike met the earth. The resounding _crack_ is followed by lingering pulses of static energy. Blood rushes to and from his head as he tumbles through the air, hooks forcibly detached from buildings. The harsh gusts of wind bring debris with it, bits of stone and wood crashing and tearing into surrounding buildings.

It’s the same as what he experienced earlier while on maintenance duty. What he experienced five years ago in Shiganshina. Except on a more destructive scale.

The smell of burning wax.

A flash of colored lightning.

A devastating explosion.

 _The Armored Titan is here_.

“ _EREN!_ ”

Mikasa comes out of the obscuring smoke, tackling him downwards and away from the flying rocks. He grips her tightly with one arm and forcibly presses down on his triggers with his other hand.

With his back towards the explosion, the two of them are pulled to the side by his hooks, further away from main blast point.

“SHIT—! Hold on!”

Their momentum slows down as Mikasa activates her gas to counteract their fall. Still, it isn't enough against the waves of merciless wind and they collide roughly with the houses, smashing against the tiling as Eren hugs her and they roll across the roofs.

_Crash!_

Dust particles comes flying, forming dirty eye-watering clouds. They come to a halt a good distance away from the gate, sprawled on a rooftop and dazed from the impact. Eren heaves from the spike of adrenaline and panic ensnaring his heart in its grasp. He pushes himself higher upon the roof and sits up.

His chest and sides ache, likely starting to bruise. He draws a finger across his ribs. Winces. He hopes they're bruised and not broken because that will be an utter _bitch_ to heal. His breathing is even, and his legs are okay too...

“You okay, Mikasa? Anything broken?”

“I'm fine,” she replies.

Eren studies her face and posture, reaching out to carefully check on her to be completely sure. He won't put it above her to lie about injuries, a habit that seems incredibly contagious, if he may humbly say so himself. Her face doesn't change when he presses down a bit harder on a few places, and she breathes at a normal pace the entire assessment.

“Does nothing really hurt? Ribs?” He doesn't dare mention his own injury, but she probably detected it the moment they landed anyway.

Come to think of it, Mikasa hasn't gotten a single major injury during their time as cadets. Save for a few scratches and bruises here and there, he doesn't remember her having to stay at the infirmary for an extended period of time at all. Meanwhile, he’s had his fair share of concussions and dislocated limbs. She rarely became ill even then, the one time he knows of her getting sick is when Wall Maria fell and she caught the disease ravaging the slums they were at.

He involuntarily shivers at the memory.

Mikasa breathes slowly, poking at her chest. “No, none.”

“Good.” Eren gives her a small relieved smile, though it probably comes out more like a grimace. He stands up and draws his swords, trying to find the Armored Titan through all the steam. _Now, where is that bastard..._

The smoke has cleared enough for him to see the damage brought onto Trost. Titans weren't spared by the lightning strike, multiple entrails splattered across buildings and scattered bodies regenerating from detached limbs. He doesn't know where the other cadets he saw earlier are, and hopes they're alright or that they managed to get cover.

(If he’ll be honest, though, he wouldn’t be surprised if they’re dead.)

_Thump._

_Thump._

_Thump_.

The Armored Titan walks towards the inner gate, proud and tall amidst the toppled buildings.

...Scratch that, it doesn't walk.

It strides, it marches, it _prowls_ towards one of humanity's last defenses against the Titan race. Its body emits steam from in-between its plating, the golden color contrasting with its tight red skin. Its eyes glow in the shadows cast over its face, uncannily resembling both a human and an animal as it uncaringly steps over corpses and houses.

A sharp intake of breath. “Eren, we need to go.”

“ _No!_ Mikasa, we could—”

Mikasa detaches her blades, wrapping one arm under his knees and another on his waist, and lifts him up in a one person arms carry. He yelps, instinctively wrapping an arm around her neck to keep their shared balance.

“Wha— _hey!_ ”

“We need to go, _now_!” Desperation colors her words, her pupils dilated in thinly veiled panic. She ignores his expletives and jumps off the building towards the Wall. They accelerate quickly despite their heavy combined weight, Mikasa pushing her gear and gas to their limits.

Eren goes to protest, to argue, to go back and—

 _...Oh_.

 _We’re in this situation again_.

He's no stranger to desperation, no stranger to being hysterical in denial, no stranger to the need to _move, move, move._ He remembers the _need_ to lift a beam, the need for all that strength that he's used to punch bullies, the need for all the anger he's ever pent up in his tiny body. He's no stranger to that and _why don't you ever listen to me? At least obey me this last time!_

If he concentrates enough, he can remember picking off the dried blood from his fingertips, the feel of wood beneath his hands, and the utter helplessness crushed beneath what once supported the literal structure of his old home.

Mr. Hannes did his duty and got them to safety, but turned at a corner too late, and Eren got to witness it rain with the blood of his beloved mother.

 _You couldn't save your mom because you weren't strong enough_ , the Garrison soldier's words ring true. Even until now.

Disappointment, shame, and oh-so familiar fury swirl in his chest. He hates this. He hated being weak. He hates the uncertainty of everything. He hates all those damn beasts keeping them caged within these Walls like animals. He hates how cruel the world is, mercilessly squashing up hopes and dreams, tossing away their aspirations like trash.

“This can't...”

 _This can't be happening_.

Eren watches over Mikasa's shoulder as the Armored comes closer to the gate, shifting its body into something akin to a runner's stance. He's nothing but a bystander, a bystander that can't intervene even if he tried. He can’t look away, can’t bring himself to fight Mikasa’s protective grip, can’t find the strength in him to seek vengeance against the destroyer of his life.

_We aren't what we were five years ago... We've trained desperately... We've strategized desperately to beat these bastards and stop them from taking any more from us..._

“ _NO!_ ”

Tears stream down his face in the futile hope that this isn't the end of the line for the human race, that this isn't another victory for the Titans, that this isn't the final proof and nail in the coffin of their grim reality where humans are truly the helpless prey under the superior predators of this world.

It's more than just Shiganshina all over again, it's not just the death of his mother that he's witnessing but of everything he has left in this world.

Pillow fights after it's lights out. Squabbles over the proper way to oil their gear. Accidentally walking in on risqué nightly escapades. Sharing care packages filled with food from different villages. Touring the streets of Trost on their free days. Playing dumb games during their recreational time. Learning useless but fun facts about one another.

_Why is this happening? Why are they taking from us our lives, our dreams?_

Eren doesn't believe in the three goddesses, doesn't buy into cult teachings of annoying preachers, doesn't believe in a higher being.

But, at this moment, what else can he do besides pray? Pray and will and implore and plead and _beg_?

The Armored Titan stomps its foot forward. It falls into a lunging position, fists flexing and steam coming out from its nose.

Eren forgets to breathe.

“ ** _STOP!_** ”

_Ba-dump._

_Ba-dump._

_Ba-dump._

The Titan straightens up.

Cannon fire ricochets off of its burly body. The rounds are useless against its plating, barely chipping off any of the firm golden skin. It cocks its head to the side, curious and inquisitive and... _contemplative_.

Something about that gesture makes a chill run up Eren’s spine and a chasm split open in his gut.

“Mikasa... Look...” Eren says weakly.

She listens, turning her head just enough to catch a glimpse of the Armored Titan standing there as still as a statue.

Then, it turns around and simply disappears from view.

“ _Why... why didn’t it..._ ”

Eren’s shock is palpable, unanswered questions swimming and surfacing from the depths of his mind. He cranes his neck to look for where the Armored disappeared off to. Not believing his own eyes and wondering if he’s actually gone insane, he moistens his dry lips.

“...Why didn’t the Armored Titan breach the Wall?”

Mikasa is silent.

The monstrous beast could’ve brought humanity to its knees. It could’ve wrecked their defenses and sent them all into civil war. It could’ve caused people to turn on each other and reduce them to carnivorous animals desperate to reach the Interior as they were picked off by Titans.

Except it didn’t.

He thinks of the Colossal Titan’s deliberate targeting of the cannons on the outer gate, the way it ignored him until it sensed him close to its weak spot. He thinks of the Armored Titan’s stance, the way it deliberately chose a form to best use its momentum to charge through the gate. He thinks of how it all seems planned, _coordinated_ with how they chose a weak spot within the Walls. He thinks of how it displayed a capability for decision making, not breaching the inner gate of Trost for reasons currently unknown.

The Armored and Colossal Titans are not the same as the mindless beasts that are swayed only by their animalistic behaviors and that have no real logical capabilities. They're not even _Abnormals_ that retain the barest scraps of intelligent and eccentric behavior.

It’s as if they’re _above_ those types of Titans on the hierarchy, leading their army of apex predators straight into the final remnants of the human race to feast upon.

It’s only because of a _miracle_ did the Armored not take down Wall Rose.

These Titans...

They have a goal.

They have motives.

Most of all...

They have _intelligence_.

And something about that revelation is scarier than any “normal” or Abnormal Titan will ever be.

**_To be continued. . ._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *heaves* WHERE ARE THE CANONVERSE FICS, PEOPLE??? I feel like I've wrung dry the entire archive for them, especially the gen/shipless ones. This fic is gen too but there'll be hints to ships if you want to perceive things romantically since author loves Everyone/Eren and Everyone & Eren. However, my bias for JeanEre may or may not have crept up in this chapter, oops, sorry not sorry!
> 
> I rewatched Eren’s grand motivational speech at the Training Corps pavilion to get some inspiration and I think I’m falling in love with him again ohmygoooood He’s such a charismatic Suicidal Bastard and I love every bit of him SO much. In the series, we barely get to see the 3DMG and combat skills he developed to become 5th of his year and that frustrates the hell out of me. I need more badass!Eren in my life, alright? My prince needs some victories in his shitty life.
> 
> And why haven't people used the Coordinate trope more?? Fuck, guys, the POTENTIAL of it if we completely politely look away from the bloodline stuff is immense. Well, you know what they say, if there's something you wanna read, better write it yourself! Any fake manga panels/edits you see are made by me, by the way.
> 
> I'm a STEM student, but I'm gunning for Mathematics and not Medicine so if there are any medical inaccuracies, please feel free to tell me hgnhh
> 
> Thank you to JM and M for beta reading Eren’s rooftop speech even if y’all aren’t fans of AOT HAHAH If there’s anything you, readers, would like to see or someone’s point of view you’d like to read from, please let me know and feel free to leave a comment on your way out!


	2. Mission Report: The Battle of Trost District, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions and theories are thrown around about the Armored Titan's strange behavior. Eren has a short talk with Thomas and wonders what the future has in store for them.
> 
>  **Chapter Song:** [進撃pf20130218巨人](https://youtu.be/9_f9nupOrBg)

**任務報告書** **  
—** **トロスト区攻防戦** **②** **—**

Eren mindlessly chugs down his water flask, not registering much of its lukewarm taste when he swallows. Much to Mikasa's chagrin, it didn't take much persuasion for the medics to allow him to treat his own ( _minor!_ ) injuries, especially considering the influx of soldiers and civilians that need their help more than him. He's more than qualified to care for himself. His bruised ribs are nothing compared to severed limbs and broken bones, anyway.

After the two of them reported the Armored Titan's erratic behavior to the Garrison officers, they'd been ordered to remain on standby with the rest of the trainees. No matter how much he disdains not helping the injured, it does make better strategic sense for him _not_ to help at a time like this. He's the fifth of his year, the voluntary member of the vanguard of a suicide charge, the survivor of many Titan encounters, and close witness to the two intelligent Abnormals that beat through humanity's defenses like butter. They'll need as much manpower as possible to keep the Titans at bay if (or _when_ ) the Armored comes back to finish the job.

His free hand taps his pen against a wooden crate, and he lets out a sigh. In addition to his oral reports of his attempted kill of the Colossal Titan and of his experience with the Armored Titan, it's mandatory for all able soldiers to handwrite their mission reports, but...

How does he summarize the entire battle onto a blank sheet of paper? How does he describe being abruptly sent out as Titan fodder that was expected to die “heroically” in battle a literal day after graduating without any coherent plan? How does he put into words the overwhelming wave of everybody’s hopeless, the bone-chilling despair at the uncertainty of survival, and the fury that rose up from the ashes of dread with a newfound vengeance? How does he admit to his weakness that the human race might truly be _fucked_ in light of new information on Titan intelligence?

Mission reports shouldn't involve feelings, should be impersonal and nothing but factual, but he wants all those bastards in the Interior to _know_ what it's like to risk your neck for ungrateful pigs, to willingly offer your heart for humanity and have it painstakingly torn to pieces, to have no time to mourn because every second fucking _counted_ if you want to live to tell your tale.

They want the grisly details of the carnage _so_ badly?

Then he'll give it to them.

He suspects that he'll need more than one sheet in case he writes too many details, that he'll end up transcribing every single empty promise, terrified plea, and pained scream he heard in the battle, that he'll go on a rant asking _what the hell have they fucking done these past five years to combat the Titans besides gobble up fattening food while the rest of the population starved and labored and fought one another just for the slim chance of getting a single scrape of rat meat_.

“You know...”

Eren, along with the others around him, turn their attention to Jean as he gulps down water and cuts through the tense silence. “I'm grateful and all but... I'm gonna ask the question everyone's been avoiding: Why in Rose's name did the Armored Titan just... _stop_ before it breached the Wall? Are you sure it didn’t... trip and break its neck or something?”

“The officers confirmed it too, remember?” Eren replies, unable to muster the energy to so much as snort at the image of a Titan dying from its own stupidity. Mikasa's voice colored with pure _desperation_ still fresh in his mind.

 _If only they all could do that_... _Snap their necks an' save humanity the time an' energy of takin' them down one by one_.

“I thought my eyes were playin’ tricks on me, but it really did happen... The thing was gonna run through the gates, but then it just... stopped. Turned around an' hightailed it outta there... Did you guys feel it?”

“ _I_ thought there was some sort of earthquake. There was crashin', the sound of shit fallin' down. But, suddenly, all the officers started yellin' at us to get into formation,” Connie says, eyes distant.

Eren wonders if his friend's having a flashback to their time on Wall duty when they were fawning over Sasha's stolen meat before everything went straight to hell. They were so happy, playing around and casually bantering with one another as they cleaned cannons against the pleasant breeze.

 _Everything changed so quickly_...

“Then we could tell, we _knew_ that the Armored Titan appeared. And...”

“And?” Eren prompts.

“There was yellow light,” Marco continues for Connie, who shoots him a grateful look. “I thought we were all done for. We were a second away from mass panic as we waited for the gate to get kicked in... Then, one of the Garrison officers came running down from the top of Rose, claiming that the Armored Titan ran away. That's around the time you guys—Eren and Mikasa—returned.”

Jean continues his morose staring contest with the pavement, still as a statue. “We. Are _incredibly_ lucky _._ That it decided to postpone the end of the human race.”

...That reminds Eren of something Armin told him earlier.

“ _If the Titans felt like it, they could exterminate the human race at any time!_ ” the blond had said, his hands fumbling to fill up his gas tanks. Back then, Eren had told Armin to calm down but... when has Armin ever been wrong? When has Armin ever lied to him? He's always been knowledgeable, been right, been _correct_ , deducing terrifyingly accurate things from bare minimum observations.

If Eren went through with his flimsy plan of charging at the Armored Titan ( _Does it even constitute as one?_ ), would he have even been able to kill it? He'd been so eager to do so an hour ago, willing to rush to his death, but would it have been worth it? _He's_ the one that rambled on about taking chances, no matter how slim and how small their odds are of success, yet he himself is starting to second-guess it.

He always tells himself that they just need to find a weakness, a breakthrough, _something_ that can combat against the Titans without risking the lives of more soldiers!

But is he being too idealistic? Too optimistic? Too hopeful?

Looking at the grim faces of his fellow cadets, his comrades, his _friends_ that found the strength inside themselves to keep going, he shakes his head and vehemently thinks, _Fuck no. Lettin' this shit get to me ain't gonna help anyone._

He wants to punch himself for his stupid line of thought, mentally stomping on it before it can drag him down a pit of negativity.

“Maybe it chickened out? Decided that it's not worth it?” Connie suggests, unsure, looking for some sort of reassuring confirmation.

Jean snorts, ever the painful realist. “Why _wouldn't_ it be worth it? Damn thing was _this_ close to a buffet. Plenty of squishy humans to go around, it could take whoever it thinks is the most delicious—”

“It doesn't eat people.”

A beat.

“ _Hah?_ ”

“It doesn't eat people,” Eren repeats himself. “The Armored—and the Colossal. They just tore down the gates an' disappeared. Neither ate any humans....”

There's another pause.

“Why wouldn’t they...” Marco starts but doesn’t particularly know how to end his question, speechless like the rest of them.

To be honest, Eren himself would also find it hard to believe had he not witnessed proof of those Titans’ intelligence with his own two eyes... Titans avoiding large groups of people to fixate on one person happens every-so-often, but Titans avoiding _all_ the humans in its range? To go after inanimate objects instead? Unheard of. It goes against every lesson they've had on those monsters, goes against the indisputable basic _fact_ that all Titans are driven by their need to consume human flesh.

Fiddling with the tips of her pigtails, Mina says, “The Colossal didn’t move to grab any of us. It just threw us off the Wall with its steam.”

Annie's eyes sweep over Mina and Eren. “...You were there on Wall duty when the Colossal attacked.” It isn't said like a question, but Eren nods to confirm it anyway.

“Eren almost killed it,” Connie blurts out.

Jean’s body jerks in surprise, head turning so quickly that he might’ve snapped a bone or two. “ _That wasn't a fucking rumor?_ ” he demands, hand waving around the pitiful leather bottle in its grasp. “Jaeger, what the fuck? Explain.”

The rest of his friends regard him too, curious to hear a first-hand account of events rather than pick apart the meager trickles they managed to glean from the _he-she-they said_ gossip grapevine. After a second of hesitation, Eren decides to indulge them since he _doesn’t_ have a gag order on him whatsoever. Also, it's probably better that they know what exactly they're going up against than go into battle blind.

“We—Sasha, Samuel, Connie, Thomas, Mina, and I—were cleanin’ cannons when the Colossal appeared with a loud _boom_ an' yellow light,” His eyes skim over the already written portion of his report and his fingers curl inwards, trimmed nails digging into the soft flesh of his palm. “It... we all stared as it released these hot bursts of steam an' knocked us all off.”

“And Sasha caught Samuel by running down the Wall,” Mina adds.

“Like a total badass,” Connie agrees, and Eren manages to grin at the memory of her complete lack of hesitation to rescue the other cadet. The heart-stopping way she didn't think twice to run down the Wall and catch Samuel with an impeccably aimed hook.

Sasha keens at the praise, ducking her head shyly. “I hope he’s okay though... I took him to the infirmary and haven’t seen him since.”

“I can visit him later when they call me in,” Eren offers.

“Please do!”

With the infirmary in mind, Eren discreetly feels around his chest, eternally grateful that while he _did_ , in fact, bruise his ribs after crashing into the rooftops, it won't hinder him when the scouts return from their expedition. While he _does_ qualify enough to be put down as injured, it's not like he hasn't dealt with worse.

And will he just leave his friends to fend for themselves so he can rest nicely on a hospital bed?

_Of fuckin’ course not._

He traces a finger on his written words, using his report as reference to continue his story, “So I acted on instinct an' flew to the top of the Wall. The Colossal ignored me an' took out the cannons. It's—it's _intelligent_. It had this look in its eyes like it _knew_ about the fixed artillery an' that it _had_ to get rid of 'em.”

“...How do you know it didn't take out the cannons because it was trying to snatch you?” Jean asks.

Connie answers for him, realization dawning on his own face, “All the tracks were derailed or destroyed. _All of 'em_.”

While it could be waved away as typical Abnormal behavior, Connie's observation basically confirmed that it went out of its way to _purposefully_ swipe at their entire front line of weapons.

This creates an... uncomfortable lot of questions. Out of all the places on the Wall, why did it attack the gate specifically? Why and how did it choose the _weakest spot_ in their defenses? Why and how did it know to get rid of their upgraded cannons?

Any doubt of the Colossal Titan's intelligence disappeared right then and there.

“...I got onto its arm, ran up, went straight for the kill. It may be big an' strong, but it's _slow_.” Eren's fingers twitch, reminiscing on how _hard_ he gripped his triggers to try and fucking kill the damn thing. He closes his eyes, remembering the pumping of adrenaline and the crawling of urgency beneath his skin, then the disgustingly hollow taste of bitter failure. “Hook on its nape, I reeled myself in, but it released steam that threw me back.

“I couldn't see nothin' with all the smoke, but was still anchored to it. So I tried again, preparing to slash its nape off.” He exhales, burying his face into a hand, dreading the ending of his tale.

“Then it disappeared.”

Silence.

“You mean... it ran away?” Marco clarifies quietly, as if afraid of his answer.

“No. I think soldiers from Shiganshina _thought_ it did, but it just _vanished_. Just like that. The damn thing disappeared. Blink. _Poof_. The others can back me up on this. If I killed it, there would've been a corpse. If it ran away, we would've seen or heard it. It was gone, just like that.”

The implications of the Colossal Titan's ability to vanish hang above them in the air, a reminder of their circumstance and of the increasing odds stacked against the human race. Eren looks up to see that the other cadets and soldiers around them aren't even attempting to hide their interest, while a few have went out of earshot to remain in blissful ignorance of the monster's true capabilities.

“...I honestly would feel better if it ran away like a coward,” Jean says, choking the neck of his waterskin. “Tried to grab you or—or _something_! Titans aren't supposed to be able to go—” He does a popping gesture with a shaking hand.

Armin is a sickly pale, voice meek as he anxiously laces his fingers together. “So they _are_ all capable of some form of intelligence...”

“Titans, _intelligent_?” Reiner asks incredulously. He mimes a Titan with wobbly arms and uncoordinated limbs.

“Not _all_ of them. The two of them specifically could be some sort of new type of Abnormal,” Sasha corrects, tapping her foot on the ground anxiously. “Is it possible that the Titans have a hierarchy among them, like—like a wolf pack?”

“But—but why wait five years? And why did the Armored _stop_?” Armin questions.

They learned in class that the Titans eat for the sake of killing, not for nutrients or sustaining their large bodies. Eren thinks Armin is onto something... what took the two “Abnormals” so long to come back? Did some of the Titans _evolve_ without humanity noticing? Sasha could be correct that they have some sort of hierarchy... The most intelligent at the top leading the mindless ones at the bottom, maybe?

“Wolves can howl to call the other members of their pack...” Sasha rubs her fingers together as if searching for the reassurance of an invisible bowstring. “Mikasa, Eren, did you hear something when the Armored stopped?”

Eren purses his lips. “I...” _Did_ he hear something? His ears had lingering ringing after the loud clap of thunder but wouldn't he hear another Titan screaming? “Mikasa an' I were caught by the blast near the gate. There were some cadets ahead of us but I don't know where they're now. Wait, weren't you—” He looks at Annie and Mina, alarmed, because didn't they and a few others leave _after_ him and Mikasa?

“We decided to go sideways towards the Wall and not straight for the gate,” Mina explains. “We used up most of our gas to get here when the lightning struck.”

That...

Huh. Makes sense.

The distance from headquarters to the closest part of the Wall is around less than half of the building to the inner gate. The only downside is that it would've taken them a bit longer to get to Wall Rose had Mikasa and Eren not get flung through the air. No wonder their routes didn't cross since Eren was busy gawking at the fucking Armored Titan.

“We got attacked by some debris and flying Titans—but we're okay!” Bertholdt hastily amends himself at Eren's look of panic.

“Thank Goddess, then.” Eren exhales. “I can't remember much of the details after the lightning, but we were thrown across a bunch of roofs. All I remember hearing is shit crashing into each other but... no roaring or anythin' like that. Mikasa?”

“I didn't hear anything strange either,” she says.

Sasha's hands curl into fists. “Maybe we just can't hear their screeching? Or the Titans have a different way of speaking? What did it do? How did it behave?”

“It walked towards the gate and was getting into some sorta runnin' stance—a lunge—before it froze, stood up, turned, an' _left_ ,” Eren supplies. He briefly glances at Mikasa to confirm his summarized account and she nods. Though she probably only saw the later part when it decided to leave because she was focused on getting them out of there...

“What, did its mate call for it or something?” Connie asks dryly.

Eyes wide, Sasha snaps her fingers. “That _could_ be it, Connie! A mating call that only _they_ can hear.”

Marco frowns, nodding slowly. “We don't... know how they reproduce.”

“Exactly! Think about it, if Titans are capable of intelligence then—then... ah...” Sasha falters, visibly wilting.

Her stream of thought comes to a halt and she huddles into herself, hiding from a threat that isn't currently present but is very much real, taunted by her own speculation because humans ultimately fear the unknown, fear a lack of control, fear having no true knowledge on the world they live in. Overtaken by self-preservation _._ Fight or flight instinct. Raw primal _fear._

If there are Titans with the ability to disappear instantly... if there are Titans with the mental capacity for things besides eating humans... and if there are Titans that can coordinate attacks... Who's to say that they aren't capable of _more_?

The conversation dwindles after that, dies like a spark of flame against wind because no one has the heart to continue it after being met with these accounts and possibilities. Mikasa pats Sasha's head in a placating gesture Eren's seen her do many times, and Connie links his arm with hers like he's trying to tug Sasha away from the direction of her darkest thoughts.

Nearby, a supply wagon comes barreling through the crowd of soldiers. There's yelling for people to _get_ _out of the fucking way!_ There's only the smallest semblance of order, the people on the edge of their toes and barely keeping it together. All their patience is stretched thin, on the verge of snapping after being shown the true weight of responsibility they have to bear as soldiers that swore their lives to the common, _greater_ good.

“At the supply room,” Armin whispers to him, so quiet that Eren almost misses it amidst the background noise, “Sasha wasn't able to kill her Titan and it jumped on her, but—but Mikasa was able to kill it.”

Eren nods once in acknowledgement to Armin's words, understanding and sympathizing with Sasha immediately. There's a bit of guilt because what if she got bitten while Eren was busy in dreamland? What if she... _died_ when it could've been him?

He looks up at the Wall where there are Garrison soldiers assembled at the top, setting off the cannons every so often as they try to down the Titans' numbers little by little. He wonders if Mr. Hannes is somewhere up there too, bravely leading his unit not to lose hope at a time like this. He doesn't blame the other trainees for their dwindling drives because... because...

 _I think it's crystal clear. Humanity doesn't stand a chance against the Titans_ , Jean's voice creeps up in his mind, verbatim of the words he laid down the other night. Eren would label that mindset as defeatist but it's not like it isn't _realistic_ —

No.

He rips his gaze away from the Wall, directing his glare to the pen clenched tightly in his fist. So what if Jean's words are “realistic”? There's no problem in hoping, in dreaming, in _aspiring_ for something better.

Humans would never have invented the Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear had they not decided to fight back. Humans would never have regained the slightest bit of order had they decided to throw away niceties after the Fall of Wall Maria. Humans would never have even built the _Walls_ had they collectively decided to lie down and _die_.

So what if they don't know shit about the Titans? Then they'll research and experiment! So what if humans are weak? Then they'll work hard and practice and _train_! So what if he dies as a throwaway soldier? Then he's sacrificed his heart for the goodness of humanity. Even if it takes months... years... decades... centuries...

 _This world, within the walls and beyond it, is our_ _birthright_.

Something every person fundamentally deserves to live in and explore without trepidation of death or despair. They don't deserve to live in this glorified cage, living through every day in monotone routine as they wait for death. There's so much to explore, so much to learn, so much to live for that many don't even know exist. There shouldn't be a ban on the truth of the world they live in. There shouldn't be this much ignorance of the outside world's beauty.

Turning his head, Eren glances at Armin, the one who opened his eyes and showed him a glimpse of true freedom. What would things have been like if they hadn't met?

He used to spend his day watching the sky, living in muted colors without any real ambition in the world. He used to be content with the blissful ignorance, perfectly fine that kids at school would ignore him like a plague because he was “weird” or “creepy”. He used to simply _exist_ , just another nondescript person in their society.

Then came _bright shining hope dreams passion_.

Like a veil was lifted from over his eyes, he no longer saw the world as the government wanted them to. Armin shattered every barrier in a single afternoon, enthusiastically baring his most prized books to the “strange Jaeger kid with unsettling eyes”. It was incredibly brave of him to just share it with Eren like that, he supposes, because Armin's constantly targeted for being a dreamer, for being a so-called “heretic”.

For Armin, the small bullied kid, to have chosen to share with Eren, the aloof detached kid, forbidden knowledge of the outside... It's a display of trust that could've ended _very_ terribly had Eren been another close-minded brute. He brought light to Eren's life, gave him a purpose, ignited a dormant fire in his heart that grew to blaze outwards with no mercy to any opposition.

Had they not met, where would Eren be right now? Trying to imagine himself without Armin and Mikasa sent waves of _wrong wrong wrong_ up his spine. He'd be incomplete without them, a weak spark that would quickly die out without air to feed its potential.

He rubs the area between his thumb and wrist to soothe the sudden jolt of pain there, flexing his fingers thoughtfully. The sky is rather cloudy, isn't it? He wonders if it'll rain. Quite the fitting weather for the somber mood, though Eren has long stopped being a fan of the sound of thunder.

“ _ATTENTION, SOLDIERS!_ ”

Many soldiers startle at the shout. Conversations stop in a long-engraved instinct that tells them to shut up when an officer is speaking. Eren whips his head towards the Garrison squad leader standing atop a platform, obediently giving his eyes and ears.

“The Survey Corps has returned from their expedition!” Ian Dietrich announces. “All qualified medics on standby are to report to the infirmary at once!”

Eren meets his friends' eyes. Mikasa returns his nod with one of her own, albeit perhaps a bit begrudgingly considering the fact that he managed to evade being dismissed from his position and she can't watch over him. _She'll get over it_ , he exasperatedly thinks to himself.

“To the rest of you, remain vigilant and alert until further instructions. We must prepare for the absolute worst if the Armored Titan decides to go for the gate. Everyone got that?”

“Yes, sir!”

Everyone stands and salutes, their affirmatives are out of sync. A few grumble or drawl their acknowledgement, others are half-hearted in their stance, but there is a minority of hopeful soldiers that see the corps' arrival as a sign of something good happening in this shitstorm for once.

As the officer leaves, there are people that immediately drop back down onto the ground. Eren wonders if any of them will try to make a run for it and if they'll actually be executed on spot due to time constraints. They whisper among themselves, trying to find distractions from the chaos threatening to break through the flimsy barrier between humanity's bubble of safety and complete extinction.

How many have they lost in Trost? How many were left behind? How many faces will they never see again? How many people will become numbers, leaving only a condolence letter as a possible legacy?

“You know...” Jean muses as he sits back down on the steps, hands reaching for the reassurance of his sheathed sword handles. “It's weird how both times when the Colossal and Armored attacked were when our most elite units are either outside the Walls or recovering.”

There's contemplative silence.

Eren doesn't know how to reply to that... observation? Skimming his mission report for missed details and adding a few sentences, he signs his name at the bottom. _Yeah, that is fucking weird_. It's either the disastrous result of a coincidence... or a thought-out plan. Even with their fastest horses, the scouts would have to deal with hastily regrouping and avoiding Titans on their way back.

He shakes his head before he could overthink this further. He still has a job to do, a second battlefield to fight in. Standing up and saying his goodbyes, if his pats of farewell linger for seconds longer than usual, well, nobody says anything.

Eren turns in his report and heads for the infirmary.

Ø

The stone tiles are covered with a deep red, blood that has long dried, staining their uneven surfaces. Footprints litter almost every inch of them, mopping them up useless as a new layer replaces them almost instantly. Eren grimaces as he slinks between rushing doctors and walks past haphazardly performed surgeries. They don't have the time nor the resources to thoroughly disinfect every single tool and bed. At this rate, all he can do is hope that a plague doesn't break out.

He has long expected this sort of thing to happen, of course, but that doesn't make the real situation any easier.

He murmurs apologies to weak hands reaching out for him, turns away when someone cries out because their weak dosage of narcotic hasn't kicked in yet, and bows his head as a scream slowly fades out as the life behind it is taken by death.

Choose the unfamiliar elite soldier over the friend he used to spar with. Choose the girl with one gnawed-off arm over the lady with neither. Choose the superior officer over the nameless fresh recruit. Choose the one most likely to live on as a hardened soldier over the one most likely to quit his duty.

Save the most salvageable.

Save the most capable

Save the most _useful_.

Don't help the soldier that stabbed himself in the stomach to escape the battle, help the soldier that bravely saved her comrade's life. Don't help the coward that disobeyed orders, help the surviver of the vanguard that stood his ground. Don't help the parent that's inches away from death, help the orphan that's feet away from it.

Don't help them, help him.

Don't help him help her.

Don't help her, help them.

Eren loses his sense of time as he works. Cut off a limb here. Sew a wound there. Cauterize this. Disinfect that. Discharge him. Reassure her. Inform the staff of a death in Bed A12. Request the relocation of a vomiting patient in Bed B03.

People come and go, beds emptied and reserved for those that truly need it. Despite the wave of new patients, they didn't have to set up beds in the corridors and outside to accommodate for them. Small mercies that he isn't taking for granted.

He mentally sighs in relief as he does a few last minute checks on a scout to give him a clean (as clean as it could be, at least) bill of health.

“Frick, kid, you've been working all day.” The patient frowns as Eren inspects his bandaged arm and abrasions. Nothing too deep or damaging that won't heal with time and proper care, thankfully. “I don't think I've seen you stop for a breather.”

“I'm fine, Mr. Gelgar,” he dismisses the veteran's concern. Breaks? At a time like this? Eren can always rest when he's done with this round. He's rested enough back at headquarters.

“Either way, thank you,” Nanaba says gratefully from her seat beside the bed.

“Yes, thank you,” Gelgar echoes.

“You're welcome, Ms. Nanaba, Mr. Gelgar. You deserve to rest for all your hard work.” Eren writes a go-ahead on his patient card. “Please don't pick at any scabs that form. I'm fairly sure your arm will scar, but that's better than losing circulation altogether.”

Gelgar moves his limb around, testing its range against his own pain tolerance. “Thank you again.”

“You're welcome. You can exit through the doors there.”

The two give their polite goodbyes, making no fuss as they leave and Eren replaces the bedsheets. He quickly walks towards a panicking cadet that has woken up in shock because her left hand has been amputated while she was unconscious.

 _All in a day's work_.

Soon enough, the rush of patients slows down to a decent pace. His gut coils into itself at having to treat not only distant soldiers but _fellow cadets_ that he trained with for three years. He's seen more blood than anyone ever should, but he'd gladly face day after day than someone else.

Many have already been released and permitted to return to duty or given a pass. Those that remain in the quieted-down building are the ones that need constant monitoring, such as those that are still vulnerable and lucid post-surgery.

Eren strides past a sleeping Samuel, dropping himself on the chair beside Bed B36 and pulling down the towel around his mouth.

A tired smile.

“How are you, Thomas?”

The blond shuffles a bit and sits up, smiling back tiredly at Eren. “I'm alive... all thanks to you and the squad.” His face is weary, stressed at the loss of a lower leg, guilt likely eating him up from the inside.

“It's not your fault, you know.”

Thomas eyes cast downward and he chews on his lip, as if expected to get berated for something beyond his control. “It's pure luck that the Titan only caught my leg, but you still brought me along...”

“ _Hey_ ,” Eren snaps, determined to nip those negative thoughts in the bud before they can fester into something worse. “I don't regret saving you. If you think you should've been left behind, then let me remind you that _I_ won't let that happen.”

He remembers quiet moments of silence during the anniversary of the Fall of Wall Maria. Thomas found him during their first year as trainees, lighting a candle in honor of his mom with a prayer for the wellbeing of his missing dad. There was no judgment nor pity in Thomas' eyes when he stumbled into Eren's small and isolated vigil. With Eren's permission, the blond kneeled beside him and honored those whose lives were lost on that terrible day.

Somehow, that one meeting turned into Thomas sharing stories of his own family during quiet moments at night. Eren bared a piece of his soul, one commonly locked up and buried beneath _rage anger despair bloodlust_ , and was repaid twofold. He learned of Trost's culture beyond the snippets he gleaned as a street rat and was lovingly accepted as a friend despite his many flaws.

Compared to Shiganshina's big blocky housing divisions, Trost is a more organized in neatly arranged in rows and columns. Houses aren't necessarily built with the owner's preferences and superstitions in which direction it will face, but follows a standard to keep things tidy. Roads in Trost don't go narrow then wide then narrow again, instead they're the standard perfect size for merchant carts and wagons to pass through.

There's a bakery near Thomas' house that makes his favorite cinnamon buns, and he would set aside money to buy one at least once a week to treat himself. There's a candy store that Thomas loved to frequent until it shut down due to the food scarcity. There's a restaurant that the two of them visited on a free day where the owner claimed to serve high-quality Maria delicacies. Eren recalls being appalled at their poor handling of spices, and raved all about it to an ever-so-patient Thomas after the owner dismissed his advice on how to properly maximize the vegetables.

“... _Sometimes, even when you know what you_ should _do, you still hesitate to follow through_ ,” Thomas had said during Wall duty while shyly scratching the side of his face. “ _Besides, you're not the only one..._ ”

Thomas wanted ( _wants?_ ) to join the Survey Corps because of _Eren's_ words. Because of an Outie from Shiganshina that had to turn to stealing food to survive the famine. Because of a hotheaded, impulsive soldier whose greatest strength is hand-to-hand combat when their enemies are ten times their size. Because of one Eren Jaeger who does not know the definition of calming the fuck down nor keeping his ambitious dreams to himself.

“...Right,” Thomas says, fiddling with his thin bedsheet, a bit more relaxed than a while ago. “So I assume... I'm assuming you're still gonna join the scouts?”

Eren meets his eyes with an expression mock offense, holding a hand over his heart. “What, you think I’m gonna be a cop now, Thomas?”

A beat.

“ _Cop_.” Thomas' mouth twitches upwards and Eren grins at the small victory. “Careful, Eren. Someone might actually think you’re a criminal.”

“Bold of 'em to think that they can catch me.” He points at Thomas with a finger gun, winking for dramatic effect.

Thomas chuckles, placing the back of his hand on his forehead like a fairytale maiden. “My dashing anti-hero, pillager of the rich, enemy of the Titans. Woe are those that dare oppose you!”

“If you weren't injured, I would've hit you.” Eren threateningly holds up Thomas' rolled up patient card.

“Wow. You're giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

“ _Ta yeule_ , Thomas.” The foreign language comes naturally to Eren as he rolls his eyes good-naturedly. _Shut up, Thomas_. He swipes his thumb across his throat. “Are you that eager to die?”

“Says the Suicidal Bastard.”

Thomas gets a nice smack in the arm from Eren for that joke, even if he did have that coming.

“...But what about you?”

“Hm?”

“What'll you do know that you're...” Eren trails off, gesturing vaguely at Thomas' stump leg and not wanting to accidentally blurt out something offensive.

Thomas purses his lips, running a hand down to his left thigh and resting above his missing knee. “I might just become a journalist like my dad wanted me to. Write stuff about the Titans and maybe inform the people up there about them. How dangerous and _real_ they are. Get them to support Titan research and weapon production.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever encountered stories about Titans...” Eren says wonderfully. The only books and papers he recalls so much as _mentioning_ the Titans are literature written by soldiers, majority of whom are from the Survey Corps with the occasional Garrison soldier. “I think you'd make a great writer.”

He's read a few of Thomas' pieces before, and the blond _is_ quite fond of creative nonfiction. It's easy to push away the threat of the Titans, out of sight out of mind, but reading accounts of battles and casualties _should_ open eyes to the urgency of their situation.

 _Tap. Tap. Tap_.

Their light conversation is put on pause, Eren turning his head around at the sound of footsteps.

“Are you Cadet Eren Jaeger?”

He promptly straightens up at the direct address. “Yes, Section Commander. How may I help you?”

Hange Zoë glances at Thomas, then to the patient record Eren has in his hands. “Are you busy? I can come back another time.”

“No, it's”—Eren's eyes flicker to Thomas, who nods encouragingly—”fine. I'm not busy.”

“Alright.”

He pats Thomas' hand in a silent apology. “I'll visit,” Eren promises before he stands up to follow the officer. He catches the attention of a few of the other medics, gesturing that he'll be gone for a bit.

The two of them exit the infirmary for some privacy. The hallway is deserted, the silence only broken by Zoë's confident strides. He wonders what the Survey Corps has come up with based on the indisputable evidence of some Titans' high mental capacities. Surely, they have a plan of a counterattack, right?

“We'd like to discuss all the events written in your reports, if that's okay with you.”

Eren turns his gaze away from the folder tucked underneath the soldier's shoulder, who stops at a corner to face him.

“Yes, sir—” he automatically starts to reply, catching himself at the last second when he realizes his possible mistaken assumption.

Perhaps seeing his panicked face, Zoë waves a dismissive hand. “Sir, ma'am. Use either, both, or none. I don't mind. Really.” The way she says it is genuinely casual, not a single hint of malice or offense taken at his blunder, so Eren relaxes.

She grabs the folder to open it, revealing three sheets of paper, all stamped with a red seal of authenticity. Two of them are transcripts of his oral reports: his skirmish with the Colossal Titan and his encounter with the Armored Titan. The third paper, while currently upside down to Eren, is his own handwritten report of the entire battle.

“These are your reports, are they not?”

Eren nods. “Yes, they are.”

Zoë snaps the folder shut. “Very well. Follow me.”

**_To be continued. . ._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How come we have no fics of Thomas and Eren... why would Eren freak out when Thomas died if they weren't friends? At this rate, I honestly might just tag this fic as romantic Everyone/Eren alongside the platonic one jsjdkdxj teaming up with Mikasa, reminiscing about Armin, making a speech because of Jean's justifiable pessimissm, arguing with Bertholdt about going after the Armored Titan... this is the beauty of gen fics, everybody. In addition, maybe your faves are dating here too! In this house, we support Everyone/Everyone and Everyone & Everyone supremacy. ✨ 
> 
> Hange's gender is all up for interpretation (like in manga canon where Isayama said that it doesn't matter). Eren's mainly going to use "she" but everyone else might switch depending on their preference and Hange themself doesn't rlly give a shit bc they're Hange. More often than not, "she" is going to be Hange's pronouns for ease of speech and communication, but don't be surprised if people instinctively reply with "Yes, sir!" or attempt to circumvent using gendered terms altogether.
> 
> I'm conflicted if I really want to follow manga canon (with, y'know, the other countries hating Paradis Island) or just wing it with the ol' "distant village of possible Titan Shifters that hate the people of the Walls" theory from years ago. I don't think I'll do the Marleyans outside of RBA much justice beyond a mention here or there hnghhh Thoughts on this, anyone?
> 
> Considering the fact that I'm currently tearing my hair out to integrate the Uprising and coup d'état in this fic, who knows what'll happen....... I keep flip-flopping between indulging in my headcanons and wanting to keep some semblance of realism shdnsjsk then I think, hey, it's my fanfic so let's just roll with what I spout outta my mouth.
> 
> This chapter just would Not Cooperate with me, but we're finally getting to some plot AAAAAAA Thank you all for your support, I truly appreciate it! Please always feel free to leave a comment on your way out. <3


	3. Erwin Smith: The Battle of Trost District, Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Humanity waits with bated breath to see if the Armored Titan will finish its job. Meanwhile, the Survey Corps conducts interviews. Eren and a few other recruits get to meet Erwin Smith, the charismatic commander of the legion.
> 
>  **Chapter Song:** [進撃pf-adlib-c20130218巨人](https://youtu.be/tvqPkmDZHPk)

**エルヴィン・スミス** **  
—** **トロスト区攻防戦** **③** **—**

Erwin links his hands together on the table and _stares_ at the stacks of reports in front of him. It's inevitable for fear to cloud a soldier's judgment and memories of traumatic events, but that alone is not enough to dismiss the claim all of these papers suggest. Even the most ignorant and stubborn nobles of Sina will be able to glean the same conclusion from all the papers laid out in front of him:

 _There exist intelligent Titans_.

Yes, the death and legacy of Ilse Langnar may have already implied as such, but a Titan welcoming “Lady Ymir” is different compared to the Titan that destroyed Wall Maria _stopping itself_ from breaching Wall Rose.

Why would it do so? Have the Titans mutated without the corps noticing? Is there a new breed of Abnormal? A possible new generation of Abnormal Titans?

He sighs, reading over Hange's bullet list of theories. Perhaps the Titans have a mysterious motive unknown to man, because why wait all this time when they could've destroyed Rose right after taking down Maria? They have no need to eat humans nor do they seem to tire. Does this imply a five-year cycle between periods of the Armored and Colossal appearing? Is there a sort of “king” that can command all the Titans? Did they summon the Armored back? Or are the Titans scientific experiments that wiped out most of humanity?

Is “Lady Ymir” a sort of queen? But Ilse is a _human_ , so why would a Titan call her that way? Did it pick up speech from some other place? Unless there's a sort of connection between them... Ymir is a sort of uncommon name, one that Erwin would mostly associate with people coming from the North of the Walls...

This makes him come up with rather... outlandish theories, but there’s no such thing as impossible when it comes to Titans, if he’ll be honest.

Capturing a Titan and bringing it back to the Walls would be costly, both in soldiers and funds. Merely observing them in their natural territories, however...

Erwin adds his own input into Hange's notebook, metaphorically pinning his line of thought onto a mental bulletin board to get back to it in the future.

He returns the notebook to its rightful owner and turns his attention to the cadet profiles. Certainly, humanity's streak of ignorance continues to be a major hindrance to their development. There are a select few trainees that he'd like to speak to, perhaps get the smallest sliver of information that can be used or bounced off of... and if some of them decide to join his cause, then all the better.

Most trainees are outside at the courtyard, still on standby alongside the fit scouts in case the Armored Titan is to come back. Fresh recruits that will be choosing their branch a week from now. Many of them witnesses to friends being eaten or swatted out of the air like flies. Plenty of them only fifteen, teenagers that should be as far away from the field as possible.

It's not exactly the norm for high-level officers to speak to recruits before Deliberation Week is over, but times are changing and the Survey Corps will need as much manpower and information as they can get.

He's already sent Levi to summon the next cadet, the top soldier of the 104th.

Mikasa Ackerman.

Commander—ahem, _Instructor_ Shadis described her in his assessments as a model soldier, a master at all the subjects, with skills that could be polished to rival Levi's. Efficient in performing her drills and is capable of compensating for teammates’ weaknesses. A clean trainee record, with only a brief mention of her friendly rivalry with Annie Leonhart. ' _Her talent is historically unprecedented_ ,' says the notes. A bold claim.

According to her personality exam, the order of her preferred military branch is Military Police Brigade, Garrison Regiment, Survey Corps.

Her listed reason is summarized in one phrase: wanting safety for her remaining family. Not an uncommon thing among those that sign up for the Training Corps, many hopeful to get the small chance of entering the Interior. She's a Shiganshina refugee _and_ orphan so...

 _Knock. Knock_.

He, Miche, and Hange look up as Levi enters the door without any other sort of preamble. Behind him is Ackerman, her stance tall and her face stoic. She closes the door behind herself and salutes in what may be the most ideal form Erwin has ever seen from a recruit.

“Good afternoon, officers,” is her swift greeting. “Mikasa Ackerman reporting.”

...Model soldier, indeed.

Erwin gestures for her to take the empty seat at the end of the table across him, which she does so dutifully.

He eases her into the conversation with a bit of casual small talk, trying to get a feel for her personality. Her assessments didn’t make much mention of any flaws that would come in conflict with authority, but her reason for wanting to join the Military Police could be something worth looking into. It'd be a waste of talent for yet another skilled soldier to join the exclusive (and rather corrupt) branch.

“...It says on all your examinations that you wish to join the Military Police. Care to elaborate on this? Has this changed considering the events that have recently transpired?” he asks. “No offense will be taken for your honest answer.”

“Ideally, right now I would like to join the Garrison Regiment, sir.”

“'Ideally'?”

“It’s the safest for all of my family and I,” she explains before a small displeased frown creeps up on her face. “However, I doubt that they’ll agree to it.”

“Who is this ‘they’, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Her hand comes up to touch her scarf, likely an unconscious habit to seek comfort in its presence. “Eren Jaeger and Armin Arlert, sir.”

“They're the ones you searched for once the evacuation bell rang according to your report, are they not?”

Ackerman nods.

Well, she's clearly overprotective of whoever she considers as part of her family. Her Garrison team leader stated that she 'went off on her own' after all the Trost citizens have been evacuated. Going out of her way to rush to where the cadets were stranded, leading their suicide charge towards headquarters, and willingly defending the building from incoming Titans...

While admirable, that may prove troublesome if she disregards authority for her own personal whims. Nonetheless, she _did_ wait until _after_ her duty to look for her family at least.

Still, that doesn't change the possibility that she could've gotten stranded or ambushed by a horde in her search.

“You were part of the frontlines in your advance towards the supply depot.” Erwin flips through another trainee, Mina Carolina's, mission report, tapping on the specific paragraph. “Impressive.”

“Thank you, sir.” She doesn’t sound arrogant as she bows her head to acknowledge the compliment.

When he prods at her and Jaeger's successful baiting of the Titans away from the building, he unfortunately reaches another brick wall when she denies witnessing any more-Abnormal-than-usual behavior from the Titans. Apparently, it took several attempts of noise to catch all their attention because the Titans were preoccupied with the larger concentration of humans.

Disappointed but not surprised, Erwin moves on to other matters.

“You and Cadet Jaeger were caught in the Armored Titan’s blast and witnessed it almost breach the Wall.” Her report is vague compared to Jaeger's, factually stating that the Armored Titan 'ran away from its position facing the Wall'. Blunt, but there isn't much to glean compared to Jaeger's rather... _detailed_ paper.

She gives him what she noticed and she knows, mentioning a theory of her fellow cadet related to Titans and a possible hierarchy within their ranks. Hange scribbles in their notebook about animal and canine behavior, likely planning to interrogate Sasha Braus for her hunting expertise on the topic.

Cross-referencing Ackerman's testimonies, there don't seem to be any inconsistencies between her oral and her written report. Further observations on the Armored Titan may have slipped by her since she was busy retreating to the Wall with Jaeger in her arms.

There’s no fault in her actions, but that _does_ mean there's less variety and confirmations on the accounts they have regarding the Titan’s behavior.

Frustrating, but the Survey Corps is no stranger to grasping at straws.

He observes her answer his next questions professionally, clearly and with utmost clarity. It's very likely she's going to follow Jaeger and Arlert to the branch they choose, and those two _did_ appear to be dead set on the Survey Corps in their assessments, but that _can_ easily change considering the recent events...

A brief silence takes over the room as Erwin finishes his questioning and takes a few moments to quietly organize his thoughts.

Meanwhile, Miche and Levi occupy themselves with scrutinizing the recruit that's “worth a hundred average soldiers”, if hearsay is to be believed. Hange is crazily writing in their notebook and Erwin can spot a divided hierarchic triangle with words scrawled around it. He has faith that the scientist can figure something out with more time and resources.

 _Ackerman may make a fine addition to Squad Levi after a few expeditions_ , Erwin muses to himself, _if she survives that long and if Levi himself believes in her capabilities_.

He shouldn’t get ahead of himself. Expeditions are unpredictable and something will _always_ go wrong. He’s seen many talented soldiers go down because they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers or struck with bad luck as their gear seized up mid-flight. Talent and skill can only go so far on their own.

“...That is all,” he finally says. “Thank you for your time. You may go.”

Ackerman nods, standing up with another salute. “Sirs!”

Ø

Jean Kirschtein from the Trost District. A hot-headed and outspoken young man. Remarkable mastery over the Three-Dimensional Maneuver Gear, able to quickly assess situations and remedy crises before they can escalate further. Pragmatic and competent. He's one of the few that took up the role of a leader and strategist during the charge towards headquarters.

' _But_ ,' Shadis jolted down in the comments section, ' _his personality is like a drawn sword, which tends to create conflict_.'

Preferred branch: Military Police Brigade, Garrison Regiment, Survey Corps.

Reason for such: Safety and security.

Erwin wonders if his reason and character have changed, considering it _is_ the young man's own hometown that was invaded. Cadets almost _never_ deviate from their top choice unless they didn't qualify for the Military Police, but these _are_ unique circumstances with the sudden Titan attack.

_How will the next batches, the 105th and 106th, fare now?_

It's highly likely that the Garrison will have more soldiers signing up, or the cadet drop out rate will shoot upwards. Competition for the top ten will become more vigorous and training will become even more vicious. The enlistment rate for the Survey Corps has always been the least among the three branches, but he has a rather positive prediction that the present situation _may_ spur a surprising crowd to join the legion.

Miche's the one that brings the recruit in this time.

It's easy to glance at the adolescents gathered outside and dismiss them as ignorant kids that still view the world through rose-tinted glasses, but there's a steely hardness in Kirschtein's gaze that can be described as _captivating_. This is someone that does not let idealism sweep him off his feet, this is a _leader_ that acknowledges and considers their disadvantages, this is someone Erwin would want under his command if given the opportunity.

See, while the training period for cadets was lengthened from two years to three, that did not change the fact that the minimum age of recruitment was _decreased_ from fifteen to twelve. Prepubescent kids that are still developing. Shipped off or signed into the military for a secured flow of rations or a warm bed to sleep on. While Erwin can see the advantages of starting training at a younger age, it's still a very harrowing fact that people are being threatened to be productive and indirectly _encouraged_ to be ruthlessly selfish.

Inequality has always been present within the Walls, but the divide between those that are privileged and those that are not grew exponentially. Children given away to have one less mouth to feed. The disabled and elderly targeted under the cover of night for their lack of societal contributions. Refugees turning to gangs and illegal activity. Fighting between citizens of Walls Maria and Sina were commonplace, even after the disastrous “Operation to Reclaim Wall Maria” that purged part of their population.

Kirschtein, while initially nervous, puts great effort not to show it. When prompted, he recounts his own doings during the battle, albeit visibly cringing in memory of his own pessimism and of the few gruesome deaths he had the misfortune of witnessing.

“Eren made a speech that fired us all up. Thanks to him, the others and I managed to rally everyone. Most of us made it to HQ by the skin of our teeth,” he says.

“You were part of the seven that ambushed the Titans in the supply room, am I correct?” Erwin has to give credit where it's due. While Arlert is commendable for coming up with the gamble that saved their lives, the responsibility heavily rested on the cadets deemed the most athletic and skilled among them.

“Yes, Commander.”

The Kirschtein before Erwin's eyes and the Kirschtein in the personality assessments seem like two entirely different people. It seems that a great amount of self-reflection has been done by the young man, for he's making the conscious decision to turn what were previously regarded as his biggest vices into things prospectively better. He has potential, and a fire in his eyes to back himself up.

_What a waste if Kirschtein is to pursue the Military Police..._

No new information on Titans comes from their conversation. The Titans in the storage room behaved as they normally should—or, rather, they behaved as current knowledge _dictates_ they should: more attracted to the large group of humans lowered down by the lift. Furthermore, Kirschtein was well behind the inner gate when the Armored appeared, and none of his teammates' reports have anything that could be looked further into.

After a few more questions that are quickly answered with a nod or shake, Erwin decides to wrap this talk up.

“I believe that is all I’d like to ask. Thank you for your time. You’re dismissed, Kirschtein.”

“Sir!”

The recruit salutes, standing firm and nodding at the other officers, and turns around to leave quietly. Erwin intertwines his fingers, humming with a sharp eye on the retreating back.

“Ah, one last thing...”

Kirschtein freezes mid-step, hand hovering above the door handle. There's the slightest of pauses. Before the cadet could turn around to face the table, Erwin continues.

“Do you still intend to join the Military Police Brigade, Jean?”

To his credit, Kirschtein does not outwardly react to the abrupt usage of his first name. It's a sign that Erwin's question is directed towards the young, genuine _teenager_ Jean and not the battle-hardened, obedient _soldier_ Kirschtein. Erwin does not want to be given a bland, polite, textbook answer, he wants to know the _true_ direction of Kirschtein's drive and if he may find another skilled soldier under his command very soon.

Kirschtein turns around, his hooded eyes indecisive as Erwin waits patiently for an answer. His body is tense and face muscles are tight, likely having deliberated on that same question in private. Erwin knows that joining the legion is no easy choice and that it requires a tremendous amount of willpower and conviction.

An inaudible exhale.

“I don't know, sir.”

Erwin nods. His face not showing anything besides impassive acknowledgement. “Thank you for your honesty. That is all. Dismissed.”

Ø

When Levi walks in with next recruit, Erwin can't help but feel amused at the drastic height difference. Almost a head taller than Levi and only inches away from Miche's own height, Hoover sticks out from behind like a sore thumb.

Levi glares at Erwin with the promise of death, looking as if he's heavily contemplating why he didn’t fulfill his original mission of assassinating Erwin and if the corps will be able to recover from losing their beloved commander. He doesn’t find the situation as amusing as Erwin does, unfortunately for him.

Erwin reads over the profile once more, dismissing the recruit’s salute with a wave of his hand and a gesture towards the only empty seat.

Bertholdt Hoover.

' _He's mastered every single skill that's been taught and I believe he has a lot of potential, but he lacks drive and tends to leave decisions to others_ ,' says the paper. Born and raised in an isolated mountain village in southeast Wall Maria, Hoover is another competent soldier with the capability to adapt to any situation he's thrown into.

Achieving the third spot in the Training Corps requires much hard work on its own, but his evaluations imply a capability to be given a higher rank if he didn’t lack initiative. Contrary to his imposing built and impressive skillset, he prefers to stay in the background.

Preferred branch: Military Police Brigade, Garrison Regiment, Survey Corps.

Reason for such: Safety and security.

Hoover patiently retells his own pathing and rejects any of the Titans behaving in any other way besides what was taught in his training. He outlines being assigned to a team with other cadets of the top ten, holding down their position until the Titan numbers became too overwhelming, regrouping with the remaining trainees on the rooftops, charging towards headquarters, then being among the last to leave. He and a few other recruits avoided the mass of gathered Titans by flying towards the nearest point of the Wall, unlike the earlier ones that managed to go straight towards the gate.

It was when they were hugging the Wall did the Armored Titan appear in a bright flash of golden lightning. Small Titans went flying away from the blast point and rained down on the trainees that had to temporarily scatter away from them and the debris. Hoover was too far away to see much of the Armored, more focused on getting inside Wall Rose as quickly as possible.

Reports made after the Fall of Wall Maria already gave the information that the Colossal appeared out of nowhere after a lightning strike, but next to nothing of where the Armored came from and of its capabilities. _So the Armored may also share this strange teleportation-like ability with the Colossal_. The sonic speed of their movements may be the cause of the destructive explosions of energy, and this may be taxing on the two Titans, which is why they only reappeared roughly five years later after attacking Maria.

How does one defeat monstrous enemies that do their one task and disappear before they can be killed? Who's to say that this five-year “cooldown period” is _actually_ five years? How can they predict the movements and behaviors of these type of Abnormal Titans that are on a completely different level above the rest?

“...Do you know which branch you'll be enlisting in?” Erwin inquires. “No offense will be taken for your honest answer.”

Hoover blinks. Pausing as if unused to having such freedom of choice.

The silence stretches on as the trainee's uncertain gaze attaches itself to the table. Give or take a few seconds, Erwin predicts that the wooden surface would catch fire from how intensely Hoover is focusing on it.

“...I'll go where I can protect my friends, sir.”

What an interesting answer.

Not _I'll go where my friends go_. His careful wording has the implication of _I'll go where I have the capability, influence, and power to protect my friends, even if it's not the same branch_.

Erwin supposes that these friends are Leonhart and Braun, considering that the three of them enlisted together and come from the same hometown. There could also be others in the 104th batch because if Hoover's closest friends are civilians, then his branch of choice _should_ be the Garrison. The Military Police Brigade is strict enough in permitting its new recruits to move their immediate family into the Interior, how much more those of no blood relation?

He comes to the conclusion that, like many trainees, Hoover will take his friends' branches into consideration but _may_ join the Survey Corps (or, by extension, the Garrison) if he believes it to be beneficial.

“You don't have a definitive choice as of yet, correct?”

“None as of the moment. I... originally wanted to join the MP's, but I'll honestly tell you that I'm not too sure on that right now,” Hoover says with an affirmative nod, this time meeting Erwin's eyes with startlingly firm resolve. “But like I said earlier, I'll go where I can protect my friends, sir.”

Shadis, as an instructor that occasionally does rounds in the other divisions, believes that there's a disparity between the South and the other Training Corps branches' skills. He's not the type to say such things lightly. Compliments and praise are hard-earned from him. Though he has his own flaws as a leader and strategist, he has a keen eye for assessing talent and strength.

While Hoover seems like the average pushover at first glance, that doesn't change his status as a survivor of the Fall and the third in his cadet rankings. Not to mention that he survived a surprise Titan attack barely a day after graduation without a single injury...

“We, the Survey Corps, can only hope to entice you with the knowledge that we are coming a step closer to understanding Titan behavior, including the two most intelligent Abnormals we've encountered so far. Once we have finished our interviews and finalized our theories, next month's expedition will be focused on observation and reconnaissance...”

Erwin mindfully mentions that the goal of retaking Wall Maria remains but will be temporarily sidelined for the mean time. All their supply lines and effort in carving out a path will be useless if humanity is already wiped out. It may only be a matter of time before Rose and Sina are breached and invaded too.

“...Ultimately, it is you who will decide where you go; therefore all I may do at the moment is sincerely hope that you do consider us.”

“I...” A beat. “I'll see if I will.”

If this cadet is truly the type to go with the flow of the majority, then his search for the branch where he may protect his friends must be difficult. If his friends join the Military Police Brigade, will he join them and live a relatively safer life in the Interior? Will he be willing to part with them and join the Garrison or Survey Corps, perhaps laying down his life to be a small stepping stone towards the greater good of the human race?

Erwin is yet to talk to Leonhart and Braun, but the odds of recruiting Hoover are the best when they too join the corps. It's either all three or none of them, unless one is to consciously break away from the group. He can only hope for the best outcome by the end of their Deliberation Week.

“That will be all. Thank you very much for your time, cadet.” Hoover bows his head at that. “You're dismissed.”

A hearty salute. “Officers!”

Ø

The exhaustion from the earlier expedition is starting to creep up on Erwin, and he dreads to think of the workload he has to do with filing reports, writing condolence letters, and coordinating with the corps' research division. He's knows for a fact that his subordinates are no better, wanting to crash onto their beds or to mourn for their fallen comrades in peace but, alas, such is the life of a scout.

Will people be able to sleep with the knowledge that they were all inches away from extinction? Will people be able to get winks of sleep with this wake-up call that the Titans may come knocking at any time? Will people be able to go on with their lives, wondering if the Wall will be broken down by the time they wake up?

 _Can I continue asking my soldiers—men, women, people, children—to keep offering their hearts?_ Erwin grimaces at the thought that everything they've done will all be for naught. Every abandoned stronghold, every broken corpse, every lavish party to gather funds, every sleepless night spent tossing and turning, every waking second haunted by the ghosts of the dead...

He tilts his head to shake off his useless negative thoughts. The drowsiness must be getting to him, but each minute is crucial if he wants to get all the possible facts as fresh as possible from the cadets. He refocuses his attention and looks down the long table, to where Cadet Reiner Braun is seated across from him.

' _He's as strong as an ox and has the will to match. But more than anything, he's earned the trust of his comrades_.' A well-rounded recruit favored as a sibling figure among his peers. Intelligent and resilient. Selfless when it comes to tips and tricks on exams and assessments. Quite the social butterfly that encouraged his fellow trainees to soar above their stations, even at the cost of his own free time.

The corps is a place where trust and teamwork breeds survival. There have been a few cases swept under the metaphorical rug where objects of hatred were either left to die or manually _thrown_ into the jaws of death. While notably not much of a leader figure unless pushed to be one, Braun is flexible when it comes to teammates. A mitigator between quarrels and a voice of reason.

Preferred branch: Military Police Brigade, Garrison Regiment, Survey Corps.

Reason for such: Safety and security.

His story is identical to Hoover's, seeing as they were in the same squad during the early half of the battle. They hardly separated, purposely lagging behind together to make sure all of their fellow trainees have left the supply depot. They risked being swarmed by the advancing Titans yet persisted and came out whole. Quite a commendable tale.

Braun responds with a negative shake of his head when Erwin asks about the Armored Titan. “It was too chaotic and I was preoccupied with getting back to Rose with my friends...” Erwin isn't at all surprised by his statement, preferring not to falsely hope and expect good news from any of the traumatized teenagers, really.

A shuffle of papers, a shift in topic.

“It says here on your profile that you consistently ranked the Military Police as your top choice. May I ask if this has changed?”

A thoughtful hum. “I still plan to join the MP's, sir, unless...”

“Unless?”

“...Unless there is hope for the Walls, sir,” Braun answers truthfully. “A destructive anti-Titan weapon of some sort, or a method of effective resistance against the Titans. Something tangible and achievable in the upcoming years. If not, then I'd simply like to live out my last days happily with my friends.”

Erwin shakes his head. “I will not embellish the current state of the corps for you. Joining is a decision one must make whole-heartedly and with full knowledge of what's to come. We currently do not have a fool-proof weapon or method of effective resistance against the Titans. At most, we have intelligence, and that intelligence is almost entirely made up of speculation. Anything beyond that will take time to gather.”

A beat.

“Speculation of what, sir?”

“Titan intelligence,” he answers promptly. “The recent events have inspired us to rethink what we know on their behavior and social structure. More will be disclosed to recruits after we've gathered what we can and have reviewed everything.”

“Behavior and social structure?” Braun echoes.

Among the 104th, Braun is on par with Armin Arlert, Marco Bodt, Jean Kirschtein, and Ymir for top marks in academics. Consistently placing high in tests revolving around battle tactics and strategy, it makes sense for him to be analytical or, at the very least, inquisitive and curious of the current state of the military. Memorization alone is not enough to excel in those classes.

“They may have a social hierarchy among their ranks. Whether this is the result of a mutation that granted a select few of them intelligence, or simply something humanity has been woefully ignorant of for decades is up for debate, but we are fairly certain that they have internal dynamics that we are not aware of as of yet.”

A low intake of breath. “Sasha—Sasha Braus, another graduate, sir, had a theory about mating calls.” Within Erwin's peripheral, Hange leans forward attentively. “That the Armored—and maybe the Colossal too—was called back by its... mate.”

There _is_ some merit to that. Add in the fact that the way Titans reproduce is currently unknown and generally agreed to be asexually... “It may not even be a mate.”

Intrigue. “Sir?”

“A leader, perhaps, or something above the Armored Titan in their hierarchy of power.”

 _Or something more intelligent. In the worst-case scenario, on par or above regular human intelligence_.

Erwin can see the gears turning in the cadet's brain, absorbing and picking apart what he's been presented with. If they're able to learn and understand more about the giants, they'll be able to prevent the two mysterious Abnormals from pilfering more territory. A lead in a specific direction is better than going in blind, something the Survey Corps is very much intimately familiar with.

Braun licks his dry lips. “Is it really possible for us to gain control over them, sir?”

“I believe so. Every animal, every species has its weaknesses. Physically, the Titans' weak spot is their napes. As for socially? Instinctively? _Collectively_? It's only a matter of searching for and then exploiting them.”

A pensive silence.

He gives the recruit time for everything to sink in. When the news of Trost District's fall reaches the far corners of the Walls, there'll likely be a boost in support and flow of funds for the corps. They have a hint of what and where to conduct their investigations and will have an influx of cash, albeit the money will only be temporarily. After Wall Maria's fall, hysteria prompted donations and support to reach an all-time high before humanity found its (unsteady) footing again.

While large quantities of new recruits are always appreciated, _quality_ soldiers are scarce yet higher in demand. Erwin is not above nudging cadets into his direction, not above setting alight the sparks of their bravery, not above appealing to how the corps and their interests align.

Finally, Braun speaks again.

“...I'm still not entirely sure if I'm up for the task, Commander, but even if I don't pursue your branch, I still wish you and all the scouts the best of luck on the field.”

That answer is far better than an outright rejection of the corps. An appreciative smile and a nod. Erwin will take it, will even accept a late transferee with open arms, will carry on with the knowledge that he at least _tried_.

“Well, I suppose that is all, cadet. Your words and time are highly appreciated. Dismissed.”

Braun nods dutifully and stands up straight. “Officers!”

Ø

“Well? Is that the last of the brats y'want us to scare?” Levi drawls after Cadet Arlert leaves the room, fingers tapping his upper arm as if he isn't paying deep attention to each trainee that may or may not be a future comrade. He _was_ one of the most vocal when the government issued the decree to lower the Training Corps recruitment age, swearing like a true soldier with curses beseeching hell onto the nobles' ancestors, after all. “You and your dramatics never fail to astound me, Erwin.”

Hange snickers. “ _Ah!_ One last thing!” They puff their chest out to emulate Erwin's defined bosom, holding their nose high. “.. _.Do you still intend to join the MP's, young cadet?_ ”

Miche chuckles at Hange's terrible attempt at a deep voice as Levi mutters, “Manipulative bastard.”

“He says as if he didn't join and stay in the corps _because_ of said manipulative bastard.” Hange waggles a finger at him.

“I will kick you off Wall Rose,” Levi declares.

Playing up their “mad scientist” persona, Hange drops their jaw and covers their open mouth with a hand. “Oooh, think of all the time and freedom I have to experiment! You'd be doing me a favor since _Commander Handsome_ here still has to do political and financial backflips to get me my long-awaited approval—” They reach over the table with grabby hands and the intention to (try to) give Levi a hug.

“On second thought, I think killing you myself's better,” Levi amends, hand inching towards his belt knife.

“Not out in public, Levi,” Erwin lightheartedly scolds while unscrewing his water flask. All this talking has caused his throat to dry up. A quick glance around the room tells him of the elapsed time, the afternoon sun having already set during the talk with Leonhart.

“Who's next?” Miche asks.

Erwin looks over the file of the last cadet that he wishes to speak to, the one with the most exposure to the Titans, the one that bore close witness to the Colossal and Armored. Who may or may not be the “main event” or “star” of Erwin's little meet-and-greet with the trainees.

Eren Jaeger.

Volatile, quick to anger if the right buttons are pushed. Empathetic. A hard worker who diligently improved himself to raise his grades and reach the fifth spot. Frequent volunteer at the infirmary whose name is mentioned every now and then from the scouts. Despite his underlying anger issues and susceptibility to stubbornness, he rarely clashes with authority and is actually an obedient follower of orders.

Erwin presumes this is if said orders sound logical to him. The Survey Corps, out of the three branches, places the most importance in blindly obeying superiors in the battlefield. A second of hesitation can cost lives, including Jaeger's own.

' _He possesses a sense of purpose that's twice as strong as anyone else's_ ,' Shadis wrote. ' _Through constant effort, his grades have steadily improved._ ' Not a prodigy like Ackerman. Not a terrifyingly competent soldier like Braun, Hoover, and Leonhart. He's an above-average recruit that worked diligently and tirelessly to get where he is now.

Preferred branch: Survey Corps, Garrison Regiment, Military Police Brigade.

Reason: Aid in humanity's war effort against the Titans.

“...Hange.” Erwin calls for their attention. “I want you to call Eren Jaeger. He's presumably still in the infirmary and is the one with most abundant and valuable information on the two Abnormals. Look here for his reports and the description of his appearance.”

They nod, taking the provided papers, and stand up with a snappy salute. “Will do!”

Ø

Eren is led to one of the many meeting rooms in a wing away from the bustling courtyard and infirmary. A morbid part of him muses that this would be the perfect spot to kill someone, far far away from where the soldiers are congregated. No one would find the body for at least a day.

“This is it already,” Zoë says, “but don't worry!”

She smiles at him reassuringly, politely knocking thrice on the intricately designed doors.

 _Just tell them exactly how you feel_.

A hot pain sears through his skull. Eren lets out a quiet gasp and shields his eyes from the light by burying his face in his sleeve. His vision blurs. Head spins. Chest aches from the phantom hand wrapped around his ribs, stimulating and setting all his nerves alight with the heat of burning pain. His clothes stick to his skin with a tight death grip, a heavy weight despite that fact that he took off his uniform jacket earlier.

“—Hey—”

Then, a rush of adrenaline.

A strange breezy feeling of lightness makes the weight of his body on his two feet disappear. A burst of strange giddiness, the urge to laugh from the waves of euphoria. The kind he gets when remembering a hilarious joke at a terribly inappropriate time, when he has to bite his lip to suppress the bubbling laughter, and when he has to keep a straight face or else he'll be running laps around the Training Corps premises for the next three hours.

The tension seeps off of his shoulders and his clenched hands open again. His fingernails leave imprints on his palm, a light sting that grounds him back onto the world. The muted sounds only now floating into his ears, calling for his attention.

“—Jaeger? Are you alright?”

“S-sorry, Section Commander,” Eren apologizes, slowly pulling down his arm. “I'm just... tired.”

Zoë stares at him.

“Are you injured in any way right now? A concussion or something of the like?”

He's quiet for a moment, tempted to lie. Zoë ushers him away from the door with an imploring look of concern that makes his resolve crumble like a tower made of Nac's incomplete deck of cards. Eren may not _like_ it, but his injury _will_ require him to do less strenuous training for the meantime. Lying will do him no good in this situation.

Reluctantly, he answers with, “...I have bruised ribs, sir.”

“Eren—can I call you Eren?” She continues at his affirmative nod. “Please don't be afraid to tell anyone, your superiors or otherwise, about any injuries you have. We don't want to cause you unnecessary and avoidable pain. You treated yourself, I presume? While I can't stop you from _not_ wanting to be marked as injured and pulled off the stand-by list, make sure to know your limits, m'kay?”

He bows his head in acknowledgement.

“Understood, ma'am.”

“And stop it with the formalities!” Zoë lightly taps his shoulder with a scolding finger. “Just call me Hange! I mean, you _can_ call me Lord or Lady Hange, I won’t stop you!” She waves her hands around in a crude flamboyant gesture, bursting out into contagious laughter.

Eren can't help but smile.

“Of course, Your Highness.”

Clasping her hands together, she gasps loudly. “Ooh, I like you!”

She reaches to pat the air above his back, her hand not actually making contact with him. “You and I are going to be the best of friends!”

“Sure,” he agrees. “I hope to work together with you in the future.”

“You're still set on joining the corps?” At his nod, Hange continues, “Well, if that's what you want! Listen, those guys”—she waves a hand towards the closed doors and leans in closer, as if sharing a particularly deep insider secret—”are total softies in the inside. Erwin, Miche, and Levi. _Especially_ Levi. He takes his tea plain and drinks, what, twenty cups a day? You'd _think_ that's where he gets his superpowers from!

“As for Miche? He’s a bloodhound,” she rambles on, flipping a few stray hair strands off her shoulder. Her oddly soothing voice makes Eren's nerves calm down and his heart slow to a normal pace. “Can smell Titans from miles away. He gets his superpowers by hogging all the clean air tall people breathe, you know? Levi would snark for him to share his secrets to sprouting out like an annoying weed, but Miche would just shove him into nearby puddles of dirty water.

“When I ask why he does that specifically, Miche tells me to ask Levi, who tells me to ask Erwin, who tells me to ask Miche.”

Hange inhales to catch her breath.

“Speaking of Erwin, I theorize that _his_ power comes from the eyebrows.”

Eren chokes, startled, wheezing as his spit goes down the wrong pipe and trying to not sound like he’s dying. He clutches at his chest and finds the pain of his ribs numbed by a cozy warm feeling. The closest he's seen the officers is on the streets of Shiganshina and Trost when they'd go and come back from their expeditions. If the blond he has in mind is Commander Erwin, he thinks Hange's silly theory will make it difficult to stare make eye contact with the man.

How is he supposed to face the Survey Corps officers with those images in mind now?

Maybe he should regret opening his big fat mouth just this once, lest he end up cracking in the middle of a supposedly serious meeting. Or maybe he should just blame it on his painkilling concoctions making him loopy. Yeah. He's a medic, he can play it off.

“No, seriously, listen!” Hange says persistently as if she isn’t grinning maniacally herself. “Where else would he store all his knowledge? His battle strategies? His brain might explode from trying to hold all of it in! I brought up this theory to Levi and a possible experiment where we shave them off and observe, but he told me to go away because Erwin might retaliate by hiding all the bleach again.”

 _Hiding all the bleach_ again _?_ he thinks to himself, amused.

If Eren’s to be honest, though, hearing these small stories and anecdotes tear down the barriers of hero worship he managed to retain from his childhood. He’d hear tales and gossip from the barracks and streets about Captain Levi's superhuman maneuvers and Section Commander Zacharias' navigational prowess, sure, but not much about the _actual_ them.

It... _humanizes_ them, builds them up as people and not omnipotent, flawless figures.

Grasping for a semblance of proper composure, he squares his shoulders and lets out a shaky exhale. Furiously shoves away the images creeping up in his mind that should be laughed at when he’s _not a few feet away from his future superior officers, dammit!_ The laughter can be postponed in private.

“Feeling a little less nervous now?”

Eren looks at her, trying to put on a serious face but failing. “Yes—um, thank you, Ms. Hange.”

“You're welcome!” She turns around and beckons at him to follow her. “I'm going to get you to drop the titles one day, mark my words...”

With that, she approaches and opens the door to the meeting room.

Inside is a long rectangular table atop an ugly carpet. Tall wooden chairs surround it, and at the opposite end away from Eren is the Survey Corps’ Commander, Erwin Smith. To his sides are ( _Humanity's Strongest Soldiers!_ ) Section Commander Miche Zacharias and Captain Levi. A stack of papers sit in the center of them, folders stamped with seals of clearance likely far above Eren's current ranking.

It’s painfully silent as he trails behind a few steps from Hange. She takes her seat beside Zacharias, leaving Eren to stand on his own in front of the closed door.

She mouths a bid of _good luck_ to him, at the very least.

And just like that, Eren becomes self-conscious of the blood staining his leather boots and of the unknown state of his brown mop. It takes some willpower not to run a hand through his hair to belatedly fix it, and he prays that the officers will let his abysmally haggard appearance slide.

...Plus he’s not going to lie, he's scared shitless.

“What took you so long after you knocked? Took a crap in your pants and had to change, Hange?” Levi murmurs to the section commander, who only snickers at him.

A second's pause.

“...Officers.” Eren salutes, deciding to ignore Captain Levi's remark like everyone else seems to be doing. “Eren Jaeger reporting.”

Two candles near the dark window shine behind Erwin Smith, outlining him with an orange glow that would’ve been _soft_ in any other occasion, but makes him look ten times more intimidating now. The overhead chandelier only accents his sharp features in contrast with the early night sky.

“At ease,” the commander says. “Please, take a seat.”

Eren doesn't feel at fucking ease.

But he obeys anyway, sitting on the chair across Smith, and suppressing the urge to fidget under the officers’ combined stares. The four most powerful people in the Survey Corps, the best of the best, the most valuable soldiers within the Walls. It's like their combined glare would make him spontaneously combust right then and there if they wanted him to.

 _I'm feelin' totally at ease. Yeah_.

He runs through all the etiquette lessons Instructor Shadis beat into them. Would it be rude of him to ask why he’s here? Or break the silence first? Look at them directly in the eyes when not spoken to yet? Mr. Hannes _did_ say once that the Survey Corps is the least uptight when it comes to behavior ( _between seniors and juniors?_ ), but Commander Smith _is_ the head of a military branch (and one of his, ahem, idols)...

“Your mission report was quite detailed,” is what Smith starts the conversation with.

Mortified that it had been read despite rationally knowing that it would be carefully dissected because of his proximity to the two mysterious intelligent Titans, Eren swallows the anxious lump in his throat. While he's at it, he mentally blames Thomas and Armin for exposing him to poetry and narrative literature. He'd been hoping to turn in the report and never hear of its existence ever again.

“Yes, sir.”

“Your fellow cadets also speak highly of you and your performance during the Battle of Trost.” Smith shuffles through a few papers, which Eren is quick to realize are his friends’ and comrades’ mission reports. “It says in many of these accounts that you inspired them to charge towards headquarters while running low on gas. You inspired them with your words, minimized the number of possible casualties, and did not allow for anyone to be abandoned, not even the injured and unconscious.

“The most notable is Thomas Wagner. A member of Squad 34 alongside you, his leg was bitten off by an Abnormal and he was unconscious for the rest of the battle. Many reports say the same thing: that you initially wanted to bring him to safety, before performing a successful emergency surgery on Wagner yourself atop the roofs...”

His leg twitches from the urge to bounce it. Eren pinches the side of his thigh, wondering how he should be reacting to the commander's buttery words. Should he preen? Puff out his chest? Accept the statements and affirm that Eren was only doing his job? Continue staring in dumb blank confusion as to why Smith is listing things he already knows?

“...You wrote on your report that the Armored Titan 'uncannily resembled both a human and an animal' while it approached the gate and got into a lunge position,” Smith reads off of the paper, his voice a domineering figure in the room. “Then, when it froze and stood, 'It cocked its head to the side, curious and inquisitive and contemplative.'“

“Ah, yes, sir.”

“What made you use those words specifically? Your choice of wording is what interests me.”

“It's—it's not a trick of the light, I'm sure of it, Commander,” Eren blurts out with the sudden need to explain himself. When his report is read from an outside perspective, he must seem like a batshit crazy bastard overthinking things.

_Well... that's not entirely wrong but..._

“I thought I was seeing things at first, but I do believe that what I witnessed is a display of Titan intelligence,” are the words that come tumbling out of his mouth. “When I fought with the Colossal earlier, it deliberately aimed for the cannons. It distracted my comrades and I with bursts of steam... and used that opportunity to disappear.”

Smith nods. “Did you observe anything that could've caused it to stop? Hear a noise, smell a scent, or spot a sign? Even theories will suffice for the time being.”

Eren pauses, furrowing his eyebrows to recall that rather traumatic experience. He'd rather never go through a scare like that again, thank you very much, but information is still information. “The Armored was being pelted by cannons and wasn't fazed at all. Mikasa was rushing us towards the Wall and I just...” He swallows uncomfortably. “...Prayed and yelled for it to stop. I didn't hear any sort of screech nor notice anything that could've caught its attention.”

“How about when you and Cadet Ackerman lured the Titans away from the supply depot?” The commander hums thoughtfully and leans forward. “Did you observe or notice any strange behavior? Defeating a horde is no easy feat, even with the many surrounding buildings, yet you two came out unscathed.”

“...None, sir. It took a lot of yelling, and I had to use my whistle to get all of their attention. I think they were preoccupied with the tower I was on, leaving their napes exposed and making them easy to get from behind.”

“Did you see any unique Titans? Similar to how the Colossal lacks skin and the Armored is covered in protective plating, did you encounter or see any Titans with such physical abnormalities?”

“None come to mind, sir.”

“And what was your first branch of choice?”

“Sir?” Thrown off-guard by the change in topic, Eren blinks and momentarily malfunctions before he answers, “The Survey Corps.”

Doesn't the commander already know this? It _should_ say in Eren's trainee file but how is it relevant to this conversation...?

“Considering the recent events, has it changed?”

“No, sir.”

 _...Oh_.

The compliments. The wording of his statements as thinly veiled praise. The persuasive way of speaking. All of them have been... bothering Eren for a strange reason, making him squirm internally. The way Smith's dialogue dripped with overflowing intelligent charm and charismatic appeal.

There's something... something superficial about it. Something fake—well, not necessarily _fake_ but there is some _exageration_ in this case. Something resembling the people with applied rouge and powder on their faces, with concealed poison between their teeth and a shiv under their thin clothing, that would lure unsuspecting folk into hidden alleyways with the promise of pleasure before they'd strike. Something like when he knocked on the door of a cabin in the woods, cried tears of a kid lost in the thunderous rain, and slaughtered two filthy animals once their guards were foolishly let down.

While Smith might not exactly be putting on an act to _kill_ and while he may be speaking genuine words and giving out truthful compliments, the way he presents himself is to appear open and harmless and _enticing_.

Like a ruthless predator disguising itself among the prey, waiting for Eren to trust it enough to swoop in for the kill.

In this case, “swoop in for the kill” would be “secure a new recruit for the corps”.

Eren can... Eren can respect that, actually.

A gut feeling urges him to trust this man, that he isn't going to let the previous deaths go in vain, that he's willing to be ruthless and cruel, that he's completely prepared to be a devil among men to reach his goals.

Smith is not like the people that would prowl the ghettos where refugees were dumped into. Not a man of sugary words that speaks of enticing luxuries and will wait for an opening to take advantage of the weak. Not the type that would warrant a cautious hand on top of a hidden blade, ready to lash out and cut down do-evil marauders.

“...There's so much we still don't understand, but what I think we should do right now is ask about your plans.”

“My plans, sir?”

“What you'll do come next week,” Smith confirms with an easy-going tone. “What motivates you to join the corps? Is it wanderlust? A thirst for knowledge? To protect your loved ones? _Revenge_?”

“I...”

Eren's main goal hasn't changed.

Why would it? If anything, the recent battle only _fueled_ his resolve. To kill them all, to eradicate every last one of them, to finally be the ones to stand at the top of the food chain. Humanity has already been forced to live in a birdcage, but now they're being squeezed further in and away from their rightful birthright to _explore_.

With dark hooded eyes and the beginnings of a smile, Eren gives his completely honest answer.

“I just want to enter the Survey Corps and kill Titans.”

Captain Levi raises an eyebrow, verbally reacting with a soft, “Huh,” that startles Eren. It's colored with curiosity. That one syllable expressive in of itself. Scrutinizing.

“Not bad.”

Their eyes meet briefly, and a small strike of fear jolts Eren's heart. Before Eren looks back at the commander for his reaction, he can only think and hope, intimidated, to never be on the bad end of Levi's blade. He doesn't want to disappoint Humanity's Strongest—or any of the officers—either.

“Your resolve is admirable,” Smith says with the ghost of a smile on his lips. “We hope to work with you soon. If you do not mind going over details of the battle once more, it would be greatly appreciated.”

“Of course not, sir.”

A smile tugs at the edges of Eren's lips as he plucks his fresh memories and bares it for them to review. Excitement bubbles up in his stomach, fuzzy exhilaration because his dream of joining the Survey Corps is actually a week away from happening. His fingers rapidly tap against his thigh, unable to contain his elation.

He swears to himself to work hard, to show his best face, and to not let his emotions override whatever is his assigned duty.

**_To be continued. . ._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't completely sure how Erwin would act in this scene so I decided to experiment and write out something in his POV and, poof, a new scene has been added into the fic! Then another... and another... oops, how many characters have I added?? Well, I hope I did Erwin's character (and the others) justice. I enjoyed writing his POV, even if it did take some Big Brain thinking. Had to channel my inner 9000+ IQ 5up braincell ajskldjsl My head figuratively hurts omg
> 
> Next chapter, we shall have some mourning, bonding, and the recruitment scene! Gonna spoil the fact that Marco's POV is gonna appear AAAAA And I've got a more solid outline for this fic now! Just need to wait for future manga chapters so I can link it a bit more with canon. People are afraid of their faves dying but I'm here yelling like ohmygod Isayama, please break the new Squad Levi's plot armor. Make them die unexpectedly! Make them hurt! Let them feel the full repercussions of their actions! Don't be afraid to physically hurt or kill off characters 👀
> 
> As always, please feel free to comment down below your thoughts. I always love to read your reactions, hahah.
> 
> Thank you for your support because we've reached over 1k hits! AAAAA WHERE DID YOU PEOPLE COME FROM? The hits tripled since last month! :0 Sending all of you love and support. Please take care, no matter who you are and which part of the world you're from! I'm proud of you for staying alive and making it this far in your life. <3


	4. Recruit: The Battle of Trost District, Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deliberation Week comes and goes, but not everyone in the 104th Southern Division is willing to offer their heart to humanity.
> 
>  **Chapter Song:** [進撃vc-pf20130218巨人](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUQ6giPt8h0)

**新兵  
—** **トロスト区攻防戦 ④** **—**

The week after a batch of cadets' graduation is known as Deliberation Week, a period of time where they carefully consider their branch of choice. They're given tasks under the different branches to get a feel for how the soldier life is like in them, two examples of which are Garrison Wall maintenance and Military Police street patrolling. After that, the rest of the week is dedicated to spending time with friends and family.

There was a headcount of all the surviving trainees of the 104th Southern Division right after the Armored Titan retreated, and a second one when they were escorted back to the training grounds.

So many lost and so many fallen.... now just another statistic, another forgotten name lost to the depths of time. Far too many names for him to remember, old faces quickly fading away until he only has the vaguest idea of how his deceased dormmates were like.

Marco wonders about the 105th and 106th batches, how they'll continue training with death knocking menacingly on humanity's door. Maybe the previous batches are nothing but grateful that it wasn't _them_ caught up in a Titan invasion. It must be terrible luck for the 104th that they were the closest to Trost, having recently graduated and some assigned to assist with the soldiers stationed there.

Who would have expected that on the very first day, the day after their goodbye feast, the morning that marked their first day as true soldiers, the Colossal Titan would make its reappearance?

The ceremonial flame within the funeral pyre crackles with life, burning away at old papers and the few bodies of those that succumbed to their wounds. Corpses that can't be returned to mourning families because of the risk of a plague permeate the air with the rotten smell of death, a stomach-churning smell that twists his insides. Red and orange light illuminates the night sky, embers popping like misfired bullets.

Soldiers make their prayers and bow their heads for the lost. Grudges are let go as respect is given—perhaps a bit too late as their pleas and apologies go unanswered. Any lingering hatred and dislike is thrown away because life is too fickle to focus on heated rivalries and fantasies of revenge for reasons long forgotten.

Those that have crossed the line into the afterlife... all their hopes and dreams... aspirations and ambitions... talent and potential...

Marco believes that every single person can die twice. Not in the literal sense of being able to survive at least one fatal encounter with death but, instead, it's physical and memorial.

A person's first dies in a corporal manner. Their consciousness fades away for eternity, the light dies in their eyes, and their mortal body soon succumbs to decay as part of the natural cycle of life and nature.

They die a second time when they're forgotten. This death is marked by the last utterance of their name on another living person's lips and the last fleeting thought of their existence. The gap between this and the first death could be as short as a second to a span of over a hundred years. History books and oral literature can lengthen this, but ultimately no man is immortal. Stories of ruthless victors are embellished until they reach a point that the heroic figures worshipped by the public are entirely different people, only vaguely inspired by the original. Those that choose to tragically end their lives on their own terms are turned into gossip and the local ghost legend. Tales of tragic lovers become romanticized stories become fairy tale examples given to children to never let their bleeding hearts rule over their minds.

He personally thinks the people of legends are the lucky, as many, _many_ others die twice with no one to remember nor mourn for them. Soldiers and civilians alike die out in the masses, death savagely consuming all their blood and bone and _being_ indiscriminately. Barely a hairsbreadth between their first and second passing on.

Who will remember the corpses currently being torched? Who will pass on the legacy that they were once people that lived? Who will cry for the orphans, for the lost, for the abandoned? Who will ensure that those that _are_ remembered will be remembered for who they truly were, and not for delusions of the saintly people they weren't?

Jean stands beside Marco, face muscles tight with conflicted emotion. He's been that way since yesterday when the Survey Corps pulled out a few soldiers—including Marco—to interview them, absent-minded and lost in the whirlwind of his thoughts. Marco can only hope that he doesn't lose his way and get consumed in the chaos, swept away by the currents of the present time.

At the corner of his vision, he sees Reiner kneel down and pick up one of the charred pieces of bone, murmuring softly to himself. Near the blond are a few other members of the top ten, all solemn and quiet and grim but breathing and living and _alive_. Marco spares a grateful thought that all his close friends lived to see another day and allows himself to be selfishly relieved.

The rather free day gave them all time to think, what with their superiors busy and skittishly scrambling to put together a coherent plan for the future. Everyone is still rattled and on-edge, unwilling to sink into the pit of relaxation and take advantage of the extra time to do leisurely activities. Marco isn't sure if anyone near his bed (if anyone in the entire barracks, really) managed to get a second of blissful sleep, and he has a feeling those that did slumber did not do so willingly, but rather because of the bone-crushing weight of exhaustion. But even when they're awake, they're haunted by nightmares and terrors. Screams and instinctive swiping of phantom swords not an uncommon occurrence.

It's unsettling, how quickly things turned on its head.

Not too far from Marco's bed is where Tom and his friends used to sleep. They'd play cards and sing merry songs in hushed voices, annoying nearby sleepers that would complain for them to _blow out that candle before we shove it up your rear ends, thanks_.

Above him was someone he spent hours picking apart the 3DMG's schematics with because his mother loved to tinkle with metal trinkets. At the mess hall, he and Jean would share their favorite table with a rotation of people, but most of them are now dead and the empty seats pile up with dust. Marco's frequent partner in hand-to-hand was caught in the Armored Titan explosion, on her way to the Walls when she was likely flung into a building and then marked as K.I.A.

Marco blinks with his tired eyes slowly, feeling them ache from the weight of the dark semicircles underneath them.

He'll look at beds still surrounded by personal belongings and forget that the person is long dead. He'll sweep his eyes over the cafeteria and be startled by how _empty_ it is. He'll take a walk around the grounds to clear his head and it's as if death is a presence in of itself, taking up much of the open space and leaving them no room to breathe.

“ _Getting to work near the king... it's an honor!_ ” Marco had proudly declared only two nights ago.

How naïve he was to believe that serving a corrupt monarch would be the best way to spend his days, would be his fulfilling vocation as a trained soldier for humanity. His hometown of Jinae, while not a merchant hub like any of the major districts, is quite close to Sina and its many, _many_ affluent events. Parades. Giveaways. Celebrations.

It wasn't hard for him and his fellow townsfolk to get swept up in the “glory of the royal family that has been endlessly working hard to keep the people's morale up”. While not exactly rich nor spoiled, Marco used to live a comfortable and peaceful life with his family. They weren't _that_ affected by the famine because their village is self-sustainable and capable of fulfilling both their needs and the government's produce demands.

 _Oh, Goddess_.

A memory surfaces in his head of when news reached the papers about a “Glorious New Operation to Reclaim Wall Maria Led by Its Own Inhabitants”. He remembers gasping aloud when he read it, catching the attention of his parents to show it to them. Looking back, he'd been amazed at the bravery of the volunteers... but never stopped to consider if it all was just a farce, just propaganda, just a bag of dirty _lies._

Thinking about it, the appropriate term for his life is, perhaps... _sheltered_.

Nausea rises in his throat, a bitter acid bubbling at how _ignorant_ he used to be. The signs were all there. The small tidbits the refugees in the Training Corps disclosed of life during the immediate aftermath. The discreet mentions of civilian riots and protests in small, hidden corners of the newspaper that the publishers added so they can claim they've reported on it. The way fellow cadets would only shake their heads, exasperated and bemused, whenever Marco would express genuine ( _misplaced_ ) interest in working close to the king.

They might need a fifty-foot tall arrow pointing at them because Marco is apparently _that_ blind to the things going on around him despite ranking high in the classroom. While he _knows_ that there's corruption and laziness in the Military Police Brigade, he was downplaying and ignoring the truth of how deep it runs. He was willing to avoid confrontation with it until the very last second, when he'd be shipped off to Sina and smacked in the face with it, his illusion of grandeur shattered like glass smashed against stone.

_Is it wrong to want to always see the good in people, though?_

A true benevolent leader, if unable to understand the problems of his subjects, shouldn't let his privilege be a hindrance. With the fact that the current King Fritz has a responsibility over _all_ of humanity, one would expect him to be more aware—no, more _active_ in uplifting the people. Unbiased. Open-minded. Willing to help all. From those in the lowest and dirtiest crevices of society to the elite and wealthy nobles who keep the money cycling among themselves.

He clenches his fist, an uncharacteristically powerful surge of anger fueling his resolve.

How can he be content in serving a king complicit with the corrupt status quo? How can he carry on with his days, knowing that his dedicated heart will be used for naught? How can he sit prettily deep in the Walls and in the highest of land while others selflessly lay down their lives outside them, for the greater good of _all_ of people?

_What an honor it would be to work near the king, huh?_

Marco looks up determinedly towards the sky. The same one viewed by the nobles of Sina, the workers of Rose, and the remnants of Maria. The same one stared at by forgotten scouts outside the Walls. The same one fellow soldiers, comrades, and _friends_ saw before their final moments. The same one whose sunlight the Titans thrive under. The same one the king sees from inside his grandiose palace while the rest of his subjects perish because of the cruel world's elements, their blue-tinted skin withering away slowly until only the dust of their broken bones remain as proof of their existence, before those too are carried by the wind, scattered and destined to never be whole again.

 _...Fuck that “honor”_.

Ø

They're all congregated in front of a stage, murmuring to one another in an attempt to soothe nerves and distract minds. Eren stands with his friends and leans on the cracked wall with them. None of them speak, too preoccupied with their own respective thoughts.

Considering their low recruitment rates, the Survey Corps is always the first organization to promote themselves to their prospective recruits. Next would be the Garrison, where majority of the graduates would go. Last would be the Military Police, open only to the top ten that choose to deny the other two branches.

Offhandedly, Eren wonders of the current refugee situation now that many citizens of Trost have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and their belongings. Will the government bother to relocate them and provide temporary work? Sure, there are other districts they can assimilate into, but the Walled cities _are_ the largest and the busiest. Losing one is a blow to both Rose and the South's economy.

 _The Titans have taken so much from us_.

He crosses his arms, fingers pressing into the jacket's fabric and limbs protectively caging the beating heart he'll offer for humanity.

The past week was nothing but a blur of memories to him. Most recruits went home or back to their families, leaving only a handful behind. Eren can list Mikasa, Armin, Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie among others that stayed behind on the Training Corps' grounds. A few of their other classmates visited every now and then, but majority were eager to spend the free week with their loved ones and block out anything associated with their trainee life.

It's incredibly quiet in juxtaposition with only two weeks ago, when his dormmates would play cards to gamble on unwanted chores and resolve conflicts with impromptu dance battles. Rowdy nights where the curfew was shoved to the back of their minds until they heard the ominous footsteps of an approaching instructor. Obnoxiously loud shushing noises turning into competitions of one-upping each other. Scrambling into their respective beds when they hear an instructor's padded footsteps, with some being unlucky that their bed is across the dorm and away from the chosen game area.

All the life, all the vigor, all the _excitement_ has long disappeared. Sucked into the bottomless abyss where the forgotten and the lost things go. Even Eren himself can't find it in him to try and joke around sometimes, stuck on the line between devastated grief and moving forward because what else is he supposed to do? What good will crying and yelling and denying do?

_I just keep moving forward._

He brings a hand up to massage his forehead and soothe his lingering headache. No doubt, he'll be restricted from strenuous physical activity since his ribs still cry out in pain when jostled too hard. The pain-killing remedies he makes for himself are a great help though, and he'd rather not imagine the healing process without them. Mikasa was adamant that he report his injury, because daily life in the Survey Corps will contain a large amount of physical work.

That means training with the 3DMG is postponed until two weeks at _minimum_. A shame, but Eren is a “suicidal bastard” that wants to die taking down the Titans, not die in a stupid accident because blood pooled into his lungs or he suffered shock from an unexpected wave of agony.

His... _episodes_ (please believe Eren when he says that he tried to come up with a less concerning and more inconspicuous term for them) that have been happening as of late are quickly becoming a point of concern. While the first two in Trost when he collapsed after defending the supply depot and before leaving with new gas could be waved off as fatigue, that doesn't explain being knocked off his feet by an explosion of unexplainable pain in different parts of the body.

He was walking around the Training Corps' grounds with Reiner two days ago after they purchased copies of the latest paper, reading the news for any new developments. He remembers pointing out a brief mention of the Survey Corps and how support for them reportedly shot up with the recent Titan attack. _Y'don't have to tell me what happened when the commander called you, but they all looked intimidating as all hell, right?_

Then it started.

An uncomfortable ache exploding from his head. The wind got knocked out of him and stolen by an unseen force as strong as a boot to the gut. His scalp prickled and each strand of hair threatened to be torn out from his skull, yet Reiner insists that his hair didn't stick up nor move unprovoked. Eren heard the distant sound of bones breaking and shattering, as if his skeleton decided to collapse into itself from holding the weight of responsibility and duty.

If he closes his eyes, his senses can remember the overwhelming taste and smell of leather, blood, and polished marble. Invisible crimson liquid trickled down his throat and its potent metallic flavor caused him to reflexively choke. His skin heated up from a nonexistent fire, causing real drops of sweat trickled down his back and his shirt to become soaked despite the breezy weather.

And then the world became clear again.

He's lucky that he made Reiner swear on his life to remain silent and erase the episode from his memory. Eren currently has only theories as to _what the actual fuck_ is going on with him lately—none of them good, and most of them detrimental to his military career. He can only hope to find out what his triggers are so he can avoid them like a plague and prevent a fourth incident, but he hasn't found any sort of pattern yet.

Speaking of the scouts, when he attempted to dissuade Mikasa and Armin from following him into the Survey Corps, they remained steadfast in their resolve to do so. It may be pot calling the kettle the darkest goddamn shade of pitch black for him to say this, but Eren gets frustrated at their stubbornness sometimes.

“Jean,” Sasha speaks up softly.

A hesitant pause.

“Jean, are you still going to join the Military Police?”

The person is question blinks once at her words, lips pressed into a thin line. He puts his hands on his hips, silent and as if steeling his nerves. His line of sight may be on Sasha, but his gaze speaks of him mentally being in a world far far away. Eren can see the conflict in them, the ripple effect caused by that one question provoking something deep inside Jean, who opens his mouth to give his honest answer.

“I'm going to join the Survey Corps.”

His tone is—well, it's _casual_ , but... but there's a strain to it.

He's burying his fear underneath tough bravado. Kind of like before when Eren first threw him onto the ground in the mess hall. But instead of Jean acting confident to show off out of not-so-secret jealousy, Jean is putting on a somewhat cocky persona to go through with an extremely personal and _difficult_ decision. His eyes are challenging, as if silently daring them to question his change of heart so he can stand his ground.

“...What made you suddenly decide to join them...?” Sasha asks. “I mean, I thought you were scared...”

“What? Of course I don't like it. The corps, I mean.”

Connie looks up, curious. “Hm? Then why are you...”

Jean's eyes flicker to Eren, who only nods supportively. There isn't any hostility, any opposition, any _alertness_ for an opening to start a fight. Especially now that they're not trainees anymore, not innocent teenagers that can merely brawl their stress away, and not in a place where they can bicker over petty nitpicks to lighten up the atmosphere.

“I may've chosen the Survey Corps, but not 'cause I'm not afraid of the Titans.” A soft intake of breath. “And I don't think that skilled soldiers have a duty to join the corps—”

“ _TRAINEES, FALL IN!_ Face the stage!”

“—And nobody convinced me to put my life on the line.” Jean holds his head straight, gaze locked firmly on the goal in front of him and only inches away from his metaphorical fingers. Determined to move nowhere else but forward.

“This isn't the kind of job you can do without really choosing it yourself.”

With his mind spoken and piece given, he turns on his heel and strides determinedly to weave through the slow-moving crowd, not looking back to see their reactions and leaving nothing but a powerful impression to his listeners. Jean evidently isn't letting anyone so much as _try_ to change his mind; the only person he'll listen to on the matter being himself.

Eren's already honored to fight alongside anyone that voluntarily signs up for the Survey Corps with the knowledge that any expedition could be their last. He respects those that can accept death's proximity as a necessary evil for advancement in life. It's not an easy job for just any person to take.

So for Jean, the most outspoken person that proclaims his desire to enter the Interior for the sole purpose of saving his own ass, to decide to join the Survey Corps, the most dangerous branch of the military...

He feels his respect grow.

Ø

They all stand in rows of straight lines in front of the stage, stances at ease but their insides churning with dread. Tense and apprehensive silence dominates the air. Eyes dart from side to side. Light brushes of hands and shoulders are made, seeking comfort in the presence of others. The large torches on either side of the platform burn brightly—and some cringe because the smell of smoke and the sound of popping wood is too reminiscent of the funeral pyre for them.

There stands an imposing figure facing them all, a tall blond man clothed in a finely pressed military uniform. His hair is parted neatly on the left, giving them access to his calm and collected expression. The emblem sewed onto his jacket is not the crossed swords of the Training Corps, but the blue-and-white Wings of Freedom.

“I am Survey Corps Commander Erwin Smith. The king has granted me authority over all Survey Corps activity,” is the opening to his speech. His confident voice echoes through the silent assembly area as he stands with his hands clasped behind his back and his stance firm.

“Today, you choose which division to join. The reason I'm up here is to invite you to become a part of the Survey Corps, but I should warn you. In the recent Titan attack, everyone here experienced what the average excursion outside is like. I'm sure nothing else in your lives came close to it. Though you're trainees, you experienced sacrifice.”

Mina squeezes her eyes shut, haunted by the Abnormal that ambushed her squad and bit off Thomas' leg. He could've easily been any of them, caught dangling from a Titan's mouth barely a few minutes into battle and is now incapable of walking again without a mechanical support.

Beside Eren, Mikasa purses her lips and hardens her gaze in disdain. She remembers the nameless merchant holding up the evacuation, remembers his face very well, and remembers the wave of _disgust_ she felt at his utter _nerve_ to demand that she _enable_ his materialism. The people there could've gotten trampled or snatched if he held up the evacuation any longer.

Memories of his parents and his grandfather float to the top of Armin's mind. His parents lost their lives in their ascent to their dreams of seeing the world beyond the Walls, and his grandfather was a forced sacrifice in the Purge years ago—but was a sacrifice nonetheless whose death contributed to easing the famine's effects.

The recruits are no strangers to sacrifice, witnesses and perhaps _performers_ of such acts. A quick reflex to shove a comrade away from a Titan's hand. An encouraging pep talk made by a Garrison soldier whose name they don't know, that they witness cutting down Titans so the newbies can get a head start. An exchange of gas tanks and sharing of blades. A parent working day and night to make do with the little income they have for the sake of the family. A meal willingly skipped for others to have a bigger serving of meager rations.

Sacrifice is anywhere and everywhere, part of the living experience.

But that doesn't mean that they like it.

“As a result, I'm sure you came to know your own limits and the terror of the Titans. Nevertheless, while it's true we suffered heavy losses in this attack, the human race has advanced towards victory like never before.” His words catch the recruits' attention, with a few unable to hide their curiosity and desperation for good news. “We used to know next to nothing about the Titans beyond basic facts like how they have an instinct to eat humans, despite not needing to do so for sustenance, and how they weaken during nightfall.”

The commander's piercing icy blue eyes stare them all down, slowly trailing through the rows of new recruits. Scrutinizing. Searching. Assessing. It's as if he's seeing through the strong faces and put-together façades that they have put up, viewing the inner depths of their souls stripped bare.

“However, with the recent events wherein some of you were in close contact with the Colossal and Armored Titans, we've come to learn more about the Titans' capabilities and that they may have a conquerable system among them.”

Murmuring.

Is it...? Can they—can they hope to believe? Is victory that close to their grasp? They learned _that_ much from some of their comrades being near the two Abnormals for spans of less than five minutes?

Is this... Is this the beginning of humanity's counterattack?

“Are we already that close?” One trainee gasps.

“If we're on the verge of finding out what the Titans really are and their weakness, then the situation must not be that bad!” Another smiles hesitantly, trying to be optimistic of their odds.

There’s discreet nudging and multiple exchanges of yearning expressions, but there _has_ to be a catch. There definitely _is_ a catch. An eye for eye, a soul for soul, a price for a fair exchange—as fair as life can be, anyway. Good things don't just _happen_ without a multitude of bad, or else they wouldn't be able to distinguish positive and negative in the first place.

 _This sounds too good to be true_ , many of them think. Reiner grimaces, believing the same, while Connie crosses his fingers.

“The plan to take Wall Maria is still an important mission but is postponed indefinitely for the prioritization of Titan observation, experimentation, and research,” Commander Smith says, his Sina accent profound. “But I must inform you that when we _do_ carry out dry runs and supply missions for retaking Wall Maria, we can no longer pass through Trost District's inner and outer gates. We have no choice but to take the long way around, from eastern Karanes District. The path that took one of our battalions four years to clear is completely lost.”

Bertholdt bows his head and Armin follows suit, biting his lip. Technology has always been rather stagnant and unchanging in the Walls—and even if they did make it to the breach, how do they plan to seal it swiftly and effectively? The Garrison engineers are still figuring out how to cover up the hole in Trost with impenetrable materials and if there's a feasible way to block it with the nearby large boulder... and that's when they have _close_ access to a breach. How much more when they have to pass though No Man's Land?

Whatever revolutionary engineering technique was used to build the three Walls are lost to time. Eren's face tightens. An unfortunate tragedy that inevitably came back to bite humanity in the ass.

“During those four years, ninety percent of the Survey Corps soldiers died. That's ninety percent in four years. Even in the best case, sending another battalion to Wall Maria would mean five times the casualties and twenty years of work. Additionally, this is not including losses that will occur in efforts to study Titans. Those aren't realistic figures.”

Will.

Commander Smith clearly wants to hammer it in that they're signing up to enter a bloodbath. Five trainees in the middle row exchange looks, not attempting to hide their incredulousness. Doesn't he want to recruit them? Why is it like he's trying to scare them away?

“The Survey Corps is always looking for talented people. Since many are killed every time we go out, we suffer from a chronic shortage of personnel.” Those who've seen the aftermath of expeditions, who've seen the soldiers return with numbers less than when they left, who've seen up-close the haunted stares of the survivors may have been the most exposed to the fact, but they _all_ know how high the mortality rate is. “I won't hide it. Those of you who join the Survey Corps will participate in an expedition beyond the Wall one month from now.

“I believe the mortality rate for new recruits going on their first journey outside is about fifty percent, but those who do get through it go on to become superior soldiers with a high survival rate.”

Fifty percent of new recruits... that’s _them_ if they join the corps. They'll spend plenty of time in open fields between cities, the perfect targets for a horde to ambush. Rain and fog could cloud their vision until they've deviated from the group so much that they're left temporarily—or _permanently_ —stranded. They'll have only a month before they're to face death and carnage and _destruction_ again.

They'll have to bid goodbyes that might be their last. They'll put down books that might go unfinished. They'll leave behind personal belongings that might be left to gather dust and dirt. They'll hug friends that might be left behind alone. They'll kiss lovers that might not live long enough to witness the beauty of romantic affection in its entirety.

“Now you know the dismal state of affairs. Those of you who are still willing to put your lives on the line, remain here. Let me reiterate... The majority of the people who stay here and enter the Survey Corps will likely die.”

Sasha and a few others flinch at the last sentence, whereas Marco silently takes in the imposing leader in front of him.

This man is someone that actually does _work_ for all of humanity while simultaneously refusing to sugarcoat the reality of their situation and what they're signing up for. It'd be far more convenient to lie, stretch the truth to its very thinnest, and entice trainees with false niceties until they're part of the corps and unable to leave until it's too late for them to escape a Titan's grasp.

But while Commander Smith is ruthless, he isn't _heartless_.

That is the exact type of person Marco'd wholeheartedly love to serve. Someone willing to move mountains and drain rivers and shake the earth for progress. Someone willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill his goals. Someone willing to serve with his entire being and without taking advantage of the present situation to elevate himself.

Jean bites his lip, revisiting memories of Tom and the other cadets that attempted to save their friend after his gas ran out. _How many died under my command? Because I ordered them to keep moving and leave the others behind?_

Can he bear that sort of responsibility again? Can he be the one to _obey_ utilitarian commands, leaving behind his comrades or allow _himself_ to be left behind? Can he face his comrades and not collapse under the weight of worry over who could be the next to die?

“Ask yourselves if you really have it in you to sacrifice your life for humanity.”

A heartbeat.

“That's all. Those of you who wish to join the other divisions are dismissed.”

A tense silence fills the air.

Feet are positioned away from the stage, formerly proud backs are deflated, and anxiety bewitches them all with images of what might happen to them outside the Walls.

Dismemberment by a flailing sword or stray wire, a miscalculation of where to anchor themselves, being swatted out of the air, getting squashed like a pest underneath enormous limbs, watching their friends die with the knowledge that they're next, abandonment because being rescued is a risk the corps can't take.

They've all heard horror stories of gear malfunctioning and seizing up mid-air, learned by heart the many lectures on having alertness of their surroundings, and perhaps have personally been the subject of falling during an ambush by one of the instructors in a training exercise.

Some don't waste time in moving, having been waiting for the end of Smith’s speech or searching for a sign that joining the corps will lead to nothing but an early grave.

Others frantically dart their eyes to look at their friends, unsure, before they break out of their stupor and they too leave.

 _Shit... I'm begging you here_. Jean eyes the people around him that don't hesitate to turn around and head towards the chance of a longer life. They move around him, faces grim as they don't see themselves brave enough to die for a cause or simply don't see that it's worth it. _Don't make me hate myself more than I already do_.

Is he terrified? Scared? Wants nothing more but to run away?

Of fucking course Jean is.

It's human nature to want to survive, to not want to die, to wish for a long life of happiness and contentment. It takes a lot of guts to gamble oneself for the slightest bit of glory. It's not easy to accept the job of becoming a pawn for the game of life that is the war with the Titans.

Sasha stands still, frozen and lost in her thoughts. Her eyes stare into the distance and she sees herself back in the storage room, only inches away from being devoured by a Titan. _If I don't get away from here now, I'll have to face them again..._ The sound of snapping jaws and terrified screams ring through her ears, frantic apologies spilling from her lips.

Biting back a bitter laugh, Connie tilts his body slightly backwards and takes one small step back. _That's right... I left the village to become a Military Police officer._ Tears well up in his eyes and his fists clench into tight balls.

“Mom would be so happy if I became an MP... everyone in the village would respect me,” he whispers to himself, body shaking with the desire to _move save yourself before it's too late_ but he can't bring himself to, not when... not when it's his family— _Mom, Dad, Sunny, Martin_ —that would be next if Wall Rose fell to the Titans. He remembers their eagerness to send him off to the Training Corps despite wanting him to stay, their proud smiles during Visitation Days when he'd report on his progress, their support for his dream to enter the Interior.

_We already know..._

Boots continue padding away from the front of the stage, the crowd thinning as many agonize over their decision as staying would likely mean _dying_ the very next month. Will their deaths be worth it? Is it worth witnessing the end of life over and over again? Can they dare to hope that there's still a chance for humanity's survival? For their _own_ survival?

Marco lets people pass by him, some striding away with whatever is left of their dignity and others bumping against his shoulders in their haste to get away. He keeps his head forward, determined despite the icy coldness of his feet.

_We've already seen it..._

Eren meets a few of his acquired friends' eyes as they pass by him. He does not and will not blame them for leaving, for they all have collectively experienced the true terror of the giant monsters. He's long come to accept differences in their beliefs and goals in life. Mylius mouths an apology to him, but Eren merely shakes his head and mouths back a silent _It's okay_ , because none of them have to explain nor justify their own decision.

Body shaking from the urge to scream out loud, Jean bites his lip. He thinks of his wonderful mother with her overflowing love and patience and acceptance for her Little Jeanie-boy. She never complained when he would yell at her, she always accepted his quiet apologies, she _encouraged_ his enlistment and had steadfast faith in his skills to reach the top ten. He knows that she'll be nothing but supportive if he turned his back on the MP's now.

Can they do this? Can they believe in themselves to return home safely after every survey? Can they face the Titans again?

_We've seen how Titans eat people..._

Ninety percent. Ninety percent of scouts died in the past four years. Soldiers with hopes and dreams, diminished to condolence letters and a limb—if lucky.

Brothers. Sisters. Siblings.

Sons. Daughters. Children.

Fathers. Mothers. Parents.

Human beings with names left to be forgotten, just another casualty from the “heretical branch” of the military.

The wind blows ominously, the ambient sound of nature filling in the tense silence. The retreating graduates' footsteps fade into small taps as the last of them leave the area’s general vicinity. There's a temptation for a few of them to look behind them to know how many remained, but there's also a fear that looking back will tempt them into leaving as well.

Having not moved an inch from his original position, the commander speaks up once more.

“...If you were told to die, could you do it?”

“I DON'T WANT TO DIE!” someone yells back immediately.

Commander Smith nods in acknowledgement, bowing his head as if humbled by the boldness of that declaration. “I see.”

“Everyone... you look good.” He brings his head up, slamming his fist above his heart. “VERY WELL! I welcome the newest members of the Survey Corps! This is my real salute!

“Devote your hearts to the cause!”

As one, the newest batch of Survey Corps soldiers salute in unison to dedicate themselves for the sake of mankind.

“YES, SIR!”

They hold their ground, stances tall in the face of their new commander. This man will be in charge of all of their lives, the head of the organization that will order the recruits to die if need be. They're placing much trust in him and the other senior officers to treat their lives with care and respect, to ensure that not a single death will be in vain.

“...Everyone...” Armin takes in all his fellow recruits within his peripheral vision that chose to stay, feeling a deeper respect for each and every one of them.

Mikasa glances at Eren, who keeps a steely gaze forward, having been determined to join the corps for _years_.

“Ahhh... shit... This is the worst. Damn it,” Jean complains under his breath, hissing at himself. “The Survey Corps of all things...”

Sasha's mouth wobbles as tears silently slide down her cheeks, keeping her gaze forward even as Mina side-eyes her worriedly. “...I hate this. I'm scared. I wanna to back to the village...”

“Ah.” Connie lets out a resigned chuckle, colored with bitterness to just go all in before he chickens out. “I just don't care anymore...”

Krista shivers, on the verge of crying too.

“...If you're gonna cry here, you might as well as quit,” Ymir murmurs at the sight of Krista's trembling, but neither make a move to back out now.

Bertholdt steals a glance behind himself, fists clenched tightly as he catches one last fleeting glimpse of his friends, Reiner and Annie's, backs. The two are among the last to leave, soon swallowed up by the retreating crowd. He faces the stage again, lest he turn back on his own decision _now_.

The other trainees have their own respective swears and curses, both mental and verbal, but none of them take the last opportunity to leave without any judgments. Their minds have already been made, no matter how difficult the choice is for them to ignore their self-preservative instincts that are urging them to _leave leave leave_.

Commander Smith meets each of their eyes, as if confirming that this is what they _truly_ want to do. Some are shaky, some are afraid, and some are concealing their fear, but all of them let their salute communicate their resolve.

“I see twenty-two members in the 104th Survey Corps who have given the salute.”

Twenty-two out of the original count of over three hundred, out of the post-battle headcount of around two hundred healthy survivors. Only _they_ have resolved for this heavy job, the rest going to either the Garrison or the Military Police.

“You have withstood your fear well... You're all brave soldiers.” There is no trace of a lie in his words. Their commander has the barest traces of a proud smile. “You have my heartfelt respect.”

**_To be continued. . ._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE! I finished this surprisingly earlier than expected, whew. This is more of a transitionary chapter but we've ended The Battle of Trost District arc! We're headin' straight into canon divergence territory now lmao buckle up because it's gonna be Fun. Isayama won't give me details about the inner workings of the military and SnK world so I'll do it my goddamn self.
> 
> Marco's a good person, yeah, but he isn't a perfect "Freckled Jesus" or anything. There's a line between giving people the benefit of the doubt and being stupidly naïve—but he's working on it! He's getting there! He's no longer a royal bootlicker! And now that Marco's alive, I wooondeeerr how the cast is going to suffer and who'll be the first to die 😳
> 
> This is my first time writing third person omniscient skfjdlk I hope I did it well, at least. Juggling all those characters and their thoughts was hard but the recruitment scene is an absolute fave of mine hnghh
> 
> I appreciate all your support for my fic. :D Thank you, and I, as always, would love to know your thoughts, predictions, and reactions!
> 
> See ya in the next arc!


	5. Soldier: The 57th Expedition Outside the Walls, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the bloodbath that is the Battle of Trost, the world still keeps turning and life keeps on going. The Survey Corps being simultaneously a breath of fresh air and comfortable familiarity, Eren lives through his first day as a new rookie scout.
> 
>  **Chapter Song:** [2chi城](https://youtu.be/NPVe1Qx7ELE)

**兵士** **  
— 第57回壁外調査 ① —**

A yawn.

Eren basks in the comfortability of his bed and waits for the rest of his body to wake up. His limbs tingle from lingering sleepiness, blood rushing to supply his nerves with energy. As much as he loves physical affection and intimacy with his close friends, he’s already come to _greatly_ favor the spaced-out single bunk bed system of the corps rather than the squished and cramped quarters back in training.

The Survey Corps requires them to wake up early for their morning workouts, but surprisingly not as early as the Training Corps’ strict regimen. A complete win, in his humble opinion.

His body clock has adapted to his time as a trainee though, so he (and a few others, he notes, most—if not all—of whom are from the South) is up by half past five even if their morning exercises here are still at _seven_.

He slides down the bed to swing his legs off its edge and sits up. Small bits of sunlight creep in through the window, his chosen bed beside it decorated with shadows of the trees outside. The barracks aren’t divided into the two sexes like back at the boot camp—instead, they’re split into according to the division they’re in.

Eren stretches, popping a few knots in his back, and stands up.

“Good morning,” he greets softly to anyone within earshot.

An assorted chorus of voices reply to him. Sasha waves from where she’s sprawled on her bed across him and Jean nods as he sifts through a pile of clothing.

Eren kneels to pull out his storage chest from under the bed and digs through it. Humming a random tune in his mind, he fishes for his harness and a fresh set of his uniform.

“What’s our schedule for today again?”

He looks in Connie’s direction. “Mr. Miche said that they’ll post reminders and a map outside our door.”

The castle is vast enough on its own, but the grounds are _enormous_. With a seemingly endless maze of stone walls and surrounding forest leading up to a nearby mountain, it’d be easy for just about anyone to get lost.

“Bertholdt,” Connie says, his voice unintentionally loud. He sheepishly throws up a peace sign to the people that glare at his way. “...You’re closest to the door. You get it.”

“Okay.”

Bertholdt swiftly exits the room and comes back with a piece of paper. He smooths it out and raises it towards a candle to see the written text, scrunching his face up and squinting at it. From where Eren is, he can see that there’s stuff on its backside too.

Jean makes a pointed gesture at their sleeping comrades before Bertholdt can start reading it aloud.

“Hold on. We should wait for the others.”

After Eren and his Southern batchmates remained behind during the Survey Corps’ recruitment assembly, they were told to gather their belongings so they could be transported to the corps’ grounds at once. The walk back to the boot camp barracks was exhilarating as it was daunting, something about the shared experience of volunteering for the deadliest military branch bringing them all a little bit closer.

They and the graduates from the _other_ branches only exchanged basic niceties and introductions last evening, automatically gravitating to more familiar faces after being assigned a temporary section and dorm. Eren wonders how Mikasa and Armin are, seeing as all three of them have been separated.

 _Isn’t Armin in the Fourth Division that specializes in research?_ He recalls. _The one lead by Ms. Hange?_

While they _have_ been briefed that soldiers, at any time, can be transferred depending on their performance, Eren doesn’t actually mind where he currently is. He just hopes his to-be teammates are friendly, whoever they’ll be and wherever he’ll be assigned. Mr. Miche seemed nice and reliable when he met him, maybe a bit _eccentric_ considering how the Section Commander _smelled_ him on their first proper vis-à-vis meeting. Eren got a raised eyebrow before Ms. Nanaba informed him that that’s really how Mr. Miche “gets to know people”.

He rotates his shoulders, picking out spools of thread for his unfinished embroidery piece, and sits on his bed again.

Something he noticed yesterday is that there’s a strange... barrier between the Southerners who make up majority of the new recruits and those from the other branches.

It’s not animosity, nor anything akin to hatred but more of a... lack of understanding. Awkwardness.

 _They_ don’t know the spine-tingling horror of seeing Titans bare their crooked teeth and gnaw off soldiers’ limbs like tender meat. _They_ don’t know the heart-stopping fear that triggers their animalistic instinct to _flee run go_ when a large shadow looms above their heads. _They_ don’t have a newfound sense of paranoia when the ground shakes or things suddenly vibrate, signs that a beast is near and hungry and on a hunt.

( _They_ also don’t know the stomach-sinking dread that comes with the sound of thunder, the feeling of mentally being thrusted back onto the battlefield despite physically being in a place of relative safety.)

It’s obvious that the other recruits are burning with curiosity, their questions about the Battle of Trost on the verge of spilling from their lips, only held back by frail threads of politeness and self-control.

The battle is all too fresh in the Southerners’ minds, but that doesn’t go without say that there’s a larger part of Eren that’s eagerly awaiting the perfect time to tell the other recruits about the bloodbath.

 _...Without_ the embellishments added by the papers, of course.

Contrary to the journalists that had the balls to write and to publish their blood-boiling articles, there are no miracles that happened in that _carnage_. Only desperation and destruction and _death_. The papers spoke and raved of the soldiers’ heroism and courage but did not make mention of the grueling hardship and trauma.

Hmph.

Maybe Thomas can provide a breath of fresh air if he _does_ pursue writing, and maybe give Eren a signed copy of his work when he becomes famous.

A small smile at the thought of his friend.

It’s practically a miracle, though, that the night passed without anyone in their new dorm screaming their lungs out. Eren’s lips then turn downward as he pokes a needle through the cloth in his hands. The sedatives a majority of them took might have been at play. The fact that they have to depend on narcotics to get a sliver of good rest is depressing.

And not even _he_ is spared from nightmares, from waking in cold sweat, from being plagued by brutal scenarios where Armin gets swallowed by that bearded Titan or where Marco gets swatted out of the air.

Truly, he’d also love to get to know the other recruits, trust enough in them and their skills to guard his back, and gain the ability to compensate for their blind spots.

_But..._

The problem is that Eren has no idea how to approach them. He isn’t exactly an expert on how to make friends, but he _is_ insanely lucky that most of the people at the training camp don’t give two shits that he and Armin are “heretics” that want to explore the outside world. The kids back at Shiganshina were close-minded, calling the two of them names and picking fights and sticking their noses where they didn’t belong because _they_ didn’t understand the concept of minding their own damn business.

A stray thought of _anyone could die next_ surfaces in his mind, and he metaphorically punches it out of the way.

 _Now is not the time for that dark shit_.

There’s a noisy fuss, a light racket that coaxes him out of his thoughts.

Someone lets out a gasp.

Intrigued, Eren looks over to the source of the dramatic sound coming from a few beds away from him.

Connie’s leaning over Jean’s shoulder, rambling away like an overflowing fountain of uncontrollable enthusiasm as the brunet draws inside the thick sketchbook gifted to him by his mother.

“...Looks exactly like the captain! That’s a fierce nice drawin’!”

Jean has a pleased smile on his face and adjusts his position to help Connie get a better view, who’s mesmerized and glad to take the invitation. He’s an absolute _natural_ at creating portraits, with some cadets having bargained chore slots and begged on their knees for commissions because hiring skilled artists can be difficult and expensive.

(Tears may or may not have been shed when the rumor mill spread around that Jean was experimenting with watercolor paints.)

It’s a pain in the ass, though, when charcoal and sandstone bits get everywhere in Jean’s general vicinity. The clean-up is always tedious, and they’ve learned the hard way to keep their uniforms away from him when he’s drawing.

 _Especially_ their white pants.

Eren’s just about to give his undivided attention back onto his handicraft, but then Connie speaks to Jean again.

“...I jus’ have a question, though.”

“Mm?”

A beat.

“Why’s the captain bald?”

Marco bites his lip to suppress his startled laughter. Sasha nearly falls off her bed at that statement, abandoning her book to scutter over to get a glimpse of the artwork. Bertholdt’s eyes go comically wide and swerve straight towards the closed door as if expecting Humanity’s Strongest Soldier himself to come barging into their quarters at the bold defamation of his character. Eren cups a hand over his mouth, trying not to smile like an idiot lest he accidentally think of the image while in front of the fearsome man himself.

Jean elbows Connie, chastising, like he isn’t grinning too.

“It’s a work in progress, idiot!”

The spectators allow themselves to snicker when it’s clear that no superior officer’s about to bust their asses and tear them a new one.

“...I want to finish the face first before I do the hair!”

Eren waves to catch the artist’s attention. “Show us!”

“I think your angle studies are great, Jean,” Marco says as he opens the window to their stuffy dormitory.

The aged wood creaks lightly from the movement and fresh air filters in, with it comes the smell of nature and the corps’ vegetable patches. The aroma of herbs and plants in various stages of life is a comforting scent for Eren. Cold wind enters and he shivers, goosebumps prickling up his arms.

Tucked into his bed with his blanket bunched up to his waist and an unfinished embroidery piece in between his calloused hands, he feels oddly at peace.

Jean shrugs, trying to play off his preening as casual nonchalance. “That’s because I hate doing backgrounds.”

“Okay, but you have to admit that your rendition of the obstacle course...”

After some more buttering up and not-too-subtle pestering, Jean exasperatedly (and _fondly_ , don’t think Eren didn’t see that smile, Jean!) makes a promise to show them all his works when he’s done so long as they _leave me alone while I’m working right now or help me Goddess I slice you all during training_.

Connie makes a noise of excitement, a muffled sound shy of an excited whoop, and Sasha thanks Jean enthusiastically.

Eren lets their words wash over him, a pleasant background noise to combat the ever-present fear of loneliness that’s burrowed deep in his heart, and resumes his crafting.

If someone is to ask Eren whether he became good at embroidery because he’s a surgeon or if he became a good surgeon because he’s good at embroidery, he honestly isn’t too sure of the answer himself. It’s a fun hobby to pass the time, serving as sort of a memorial to both of his parents who taught him the two different areas where he can use a needle and thread. Considering the many heart-stopping instances he’s torn his own uniforms, sewing has saved his ass more times that he can count.

He runs his fingers on his soft and half-finished design, a horseshoe patch that Connie requested for his rucksack. Connie’s always had a knack for throwing them, leaving the rest of the cadets to eat dust whenever he enters their informal competitions.

Soon enough, the sun starts rising and those still sleeping start stirring. Golden beams of sunshine creep in through the window, cheerfully bright but not angrily burning like afternoon haze. The lighting makes Eren’s silver thread almost sparkle as he completes the last stitch with a satisfied smile.

If he didn’t have insomniac nerves fearful of an instructor bursting into the barracks at any second (and paranoid nerves afraid of being trapped in endless night terrors, but that’s already a given), he might find the peaceful atmosphere a tempting invitation to go back to sleep. This would be the moment he’d lay back and nap until the next month but, unfortunately, there are places to scout, duties to accomplish, and Titans to exterminate.

Ever the considerate and most sane one of the bunch, Marco clears his throat and announces, “Time check: It’s 6:20.”

Eren takes that as his cue to set aside his handiwork and leftover materials into his tiny bedside drawer, standing up to change into his uniform.

The pants have always been a bit of a hassle to put on, but nothing _too_ hard after dealing with training and the occasional “surprise midnight breach drill”. The key to his dad’s basement is still resting securely against his chest, glowing in the sunlight when he removes his nightshirt.

He can’t suppress his giddy smile at his first day of living out his childhood dream of being a scout. This is what he’s been waiting for _years_ for, isn’t it? He powered through the unforgiving refugee life and harsh military training period for this. If no one’s going to carry and shoulder the sacrifices of those long lost to the Titans, then who will?

His body routinely grabs the harness at the foot of his bed and—

That’s when he freezes.

Pauses.

Stares at the leather straps.

_...Oh, right._

He _isn’t_ supposed to be wearing his harness. Due to his injury, he’s actually required to _not_ participate in strenuous activities and _not_ wear anything too restrictive for the time being.

In fact, the last time his traitorous body decided to sneeze, his ribs hurt like a heated knife to the chest and he spent an unknown amount of time quivering on the floor like a dying fish.

Mikasa gave him _so_ much shit for that.

A mournful sigh. What a painful reminder of the bruises on his torso that are still in the process of healing...

How he’d love to explore the unfamiliar forest with his gear and soar through the skies while on a hunt for Titan dummies. He’d also love to practice taking those monsters down in an open field, since hungry Titans aren’t going to wait ‘till the humans have leverage and buildings to grapple onto. Horseback riding is a fun activity as well, and he has _so_ much respect for whoever trained those animals to not startle at the sound of 3DMG.

Dropping the harness back into the chest, he begrudgingly takes out his painkilling remedies. He’s too impulsive and impatient for battle strategy, preferring to be the one _following_ the orders of people more pragmatic than him, so hopefully whatever replacement classes he has aren’t _too_ boring.

If he doesn’t want to die on his first expedition and if he wants to take down as many beasts as possible, then he has to train his absolute _hardest_ during the latter half of the month.

The blue-and-white Wings of Freedom patch above his jacket’s breast pocket then steals his attention, enrapturing him. He rubs a finger on the design and feels the interwovenness of the threads, childishly fascinated by the replacement for the Training Corps’ crossed swords.

It’d be a waste for old jackets and capes to be thrown away once the owner moved branches or died, which is why they’re typically collected to be shipped off into factories to be fixed and have new patches slapped onto them.

He keeps one of his old boot camp jackets with him, a memorial of cadet hell. It has signatures of his batchmates all over it in various sizes and colors of ink. Letters are scrawled and doodles are sketched all over the brown fabric, the writers having gleefully drawn penises and scribbled out their bets for how long he’ll survive as a scout (‘ _Three expeditions!_ ’, ‘ _7 years_ ’, ‘ _Try and live thru your first expedition then we’ll talk after you’ve treated us all to a night out._ ’).

Being a soldier in the most financially tight branch, Eren’s fairly sure that the base of his new scout jacket isn’t his. It’s the same size, sure, but he doubts the factory would’ve _already_ changed the patches—plus, it doesn’t have his name written in red ink at the inner back.

“How many of y’r batch joined za corps?” comes the question of one of the Northerners.

Those from the South exchange looks, trying to remember the headcount.

Bertholdt holds up two V’s.

Sasha answers with a, “There’s twenty-two of us!”

This seems to startle the others awake.

“ _Twenty-two_?”

“We barely scraped _ten_!”

“...Try six.”

“And I thought twelve was high...”

“The South’s always had the most support for the corps, I think,” Marco says, to the others’ agreement.

“Well, _we_ also have a motivational speaker on our side.” Jean gives Eren a pointed look. “It was tempting join the MP’s just to spite Jaeger and his fucking preaching.”

An eye-roll. “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much, Kirschtein.”

Jean flips the bird at him.

“You got into the top ten?” someone asks Jean in disbelief. “All ten from _our_ branch took the ticket to the Interior.”

“Yeah, I’m sixth.”

“Who else joined?”

Jean pauses and looks at his friends for support. “I think a better question would be who _didn’t_ join...”

“Reiner and Annie didn’t,” Connie says. “They’re second and fourth respectively.” He puffs out his chest and points at each of them.

“Potato Girl Sasha over there is ninth; I’m the amazing eighth; the deceptively kind master of passive aggressiveness, Marco, is seventh; the injured preacher Eren is fifth; tall, dark, and handsome Bertholdt is third...”

“Tall,” Sasha repeats.

“ _Dark_?” Bertholdt blinks.

“Handsome,” Eren says, nodding.

“...And our first and tenth place, Mikasa and Krista, are in another section,” Connie finishes.

There’s a ripple of amazement at this, all of them aware of the corps’ fragile reputation. The public may want the scouts to hurry up and invent a weapon of mass Titan destruction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the civilians think _highly_ of them.

They tolerate the scouts, but just _barely_.

The ice in the dorm begins to fracture. Some of their dormmates take their chances with this friendly atmosphere to start up conversations with one another. It’s nothing more than small talk with the occasional bonding of two fans of the same thing, but it’s a start. Sparks of friendship are present, but they still must feed into it if they want to gain the full benefits of fiery camaraderie.

The military brings in different people with different backgrounds from different places. It was already cool to get glimpses of the diverse cultures from the South when Eren tried to mingle with his batchmates. Now, it’s even more so to catch snippets about the North’s hot springs, the West’s cuisine, and the East’s unpredictable weather.

...And each and every one of them has their reasons for joining the corps. Though Eren’s dying to know why some of them chose to go where they did, he knows it’s ultimately none of his business.

Jean clasps his hands together.

“If everyone’s awake already,” he calls out and the room then falls silent. “Bertholdt here can read the announcements that were posted on our door.”

He turns to Bertholdt.

“The floor is yours.”

With a nod, Bertholdt holds himself a little higher and takes out the paper again. He swallows and, voice loud and clear, he reads the announcements when he’s sure that he has the attention of all.

The first bullet points are reminders on watching their behavior and maintaining discipline, reiterations of what they were told the previous night. Most activities will follow blocks of one hour each that last the entire morning to afternoon, but that doesn’t spare them from the occasional announced and _un_ announced nighttime drill. They’re told to be unafraid to approach seniors and officers for help and assistance, and to build good relationships with everybody for maximum trust and collaboration on the battlefield.

And finally, the only instruction they have is to be at the field early, where the entire corps will have their morning workouts and listen to announcements from their superiors after.

On the other side of the paper, there’s a map that shows them the grounds and various landmarks to identify where exactly they are.

“...The schedule doesn’t list specific things we’ll do,” Bertholdt informs them. “Everything on the table has no labels whatsoever, except for our morning exercises, meal times, and lights out. It’s just ‘First’ to ‘Sixth’ period.”

Marco hums. “Probably meant to be a surprise for us rookies.”

Noises of agreement.

There’s a bit more shuffling after that as they disperse, more hustle and bustle as they scramble to adjust their harness straps and make last-minute checks on their appearance. Copies of the map are hastily drawn and distributed, with friend groups breaking off to leave at their own discretion.

Eren busies himself by stretching again to get the blood rushing, spinning his wrists and ankles. They’ll likely be doing warm-ups later, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

A quick glance at the time tells him that they have around twenty-five minutes left.

“Are we leavin’ yet?” he asks Sasha as he looks for the rest of their friends.

She shrugs.

Nearby, Jean frowns, likely thinking what Eren is currently thinking. It’s better if they (their circle of friends) go as one cluster to familiarize themselves with the area. They all have no idea how strict the corps is on punctuality and being late will be nothing but a _terrible_ impression on their seniors...

“Oi, Southerners! We’ll be leaving in two minutes!” Jean raises his voice above the chatter, calling upon the ears of their friends. “Unless you want Instructor Shadis to come after our asses for being useless slobs, look presentable! Meet up at Bertholdt’s bed! I repeat, in two minutes!”

Considering how they all woke up early at ass o’ clock of dawn and already fixed up themselves, two minutes barely pass before they begin to assemble at the bed closest to the door.

Sasha gently pulls Eren’s elbow so she can link their arms together. She smiles cheerily, bouncing with just as much excitement as he is, and he smiles back.

Jean’s leaning on the wall, glancing at his watch while they wait for Connie, who almost forgot his handkerchief.

Connie jogs towards them, saluting jokingly. “Sir!”

Eren coughs to hide his laughter.

Jean stares at Connie, unamused. “If I was your superior, you’d be running laps around the grounds until midnight for your lateness.”

“Wow. Harsh,” Eren drawls. “You should apologize, Connie. Drop an’ give Instructor Kirschtein twenty.”

“A hundred,” Marco suggests instead.

Jean looks contemplative.

“Don’t give him any ideas!” Connie exclaims, worried for himself and for his poor legs.

“That’s no way to speak to your future superior,” Sasha scolds.

Connie punches her arm, indignant, and looks at Jean for back-up and reassurance.

“...Well, no one wanted to take the lead,” Jean says in a small voice, a hand on his chin and his eyes staring at their feet, unfocused. “ _Someone_ had to do it or we’ll get lost or arrive there at noon...”

They all stare at him.

“...And— _and two minutes have already passed!_ ”

Jean splutters and flushes under the weight of their combined wonder, jerking his head away and refusing to meet their wide eyes when he realizes that they’re all _gawking_ at him. He clears his throat much louder than necessary, straightening up and turning to open the door so they can’t see his face.

“Now that... now that we’re all here, let’s not waste any more time. Let’s go!”

Exchanging various looks of bewilderment as Jean sprints out of the room like someone set his ass on fire, the rest of them rally behind their chosen battle flag, the back of Bertholdt’s head, and follow after him like the good friends they are.

Ø

Now that Eren’s exploring and seeing the castle’s interior without the filter of adrenaline and exhilaration, the first thing he notes is that the castle is clean.

 _Very_ clean.

Despite how spacious it is, the polished stone and tables all around hold no dust. The floors are mopped with not a single dirty footprint in sight. Windows shine like glistening river water and a few torches have already been lit, leading them towards the field.

“This place is so big, you could kill someone in one of these rooms an’ no one would find the body for a month,” Eren muses aloud.

Connie chuckles nervously, slowly inching away from him. “That’s a nice observation, Eren...”

“I mean, he’s right, isn’t he? All this space is necessary to practice formations and using the gear in different situations,” Marco says.

“Do you think there are animals in the forest? And that they’ll let us hunt?” Sasha asks, eyes lighting up at the prospect of doing her favorite activity again.

Eren spares a thought to wonder what happened to the stolen meat she hid in a chest atop Wall Rose. They were supposed to share it before the Colossal Titan decided to rudely interrupt their Wall duty, but it must’ve spoiled by now. It can now only serve as a surprise for the poor unfortunate soldier that finds its stinky remains.

“I wanna see a competition between you both!” Connie exclaims, pointing. “Two hunters against one another, gun versus the good ol’ bow an’ arrow!”

“You’re on, Marco!”

“But that’s not completely fair, though!”

Realization and pure enlightenment dawning upon him, Eren turns to Bertholdt with wide eyes.

“They rhymed,” he whispers.

“I guess so,” Bertholdt says.

It takes a few seconds for Eren’s brain to process that reply and he makes an ugly and undignified choking sound.

“...Sasha’ll win because she’s more adept at hunting,” Jean doesn’t allow any room for anyone to refute his statement, which is... actually the most accepted outcome of the hypothetical competition so it’s alright.

“What about Marco v Bertholdt, then?” Eren brings up, an idea forming in his mind. “They’re both great shots. Who’ll win?”

“Marco, obviously.”

“...Biased.”

A snort. “Pot, kettle. Black as fuck. Go cry me a river.”

“We’re right _here_ ,” Marco complains, an embarrassed blush creeping up on his face at all the discussion about his shooting prowess.

“Sorry,” Connie doesn’t sound the slightest bit apologetic, but does offer a change in topic. “But, speakin’ of huntin’, do you think they’ll make us hike up the mountain?”

Jean stops in his tracks and goes completely rigid.

“If we have to climb the bigass mountain in one hour as our morning exercise,” he says solemnly. “I’m gonna pack all my stuff and turn heel to the capital right now.”

...Something about Connie’s mischievous grin makes Eren feel scared for his life.

Connie pokes Jean’s back, prompting the brunet to look back at him quizzically. He clears his throat.

“What, you’re _giving up_?”

With overdramatic flourish and an abundance of unnecessary exaggerated hand gestures, Connie monologues:

“Where the fuck is the Jean Kirschtein _I_ know? The one that yammers on about his beliefs an’ hopes an’ dreams even if no one gives a shit?”

Marco politely turns his face to the side and Bertholdt coughs respectfully when they remember where exactly they heard those words.

“The one that talks big and—”

Feeling a surge of panic and desperation to make his friend shut the hell up ( _stop laughing, guys, this is embarrassing!_ ), Eren slaps his free hand over the blabbermouth’s lips with a loud _smack_.

“Shut up!”

“— _You_ wanted to join the goddamn cops, _something, something_. _Blah, blah_.” Sasha picks up where Connie left off. She stares at Jean intensely, her face warped into an angry sneer. “Where did that big shot go?”

Eren made those words and that speech in the heat of the moment, okay? He buries his face in his hands. Can they _please_ not bring it up again? It was necessary to fire them all up!

“Listen up, all of you,” Jean says dryly, adding fuel to the fire like the goddamn traitorous bastard he is.

“ _Stomp_ ,” Connie tacks on.

“I WONDER WHERE THE OTHERS ARE!” Eren yells before they can continue, marching past the traitorous bunch and towards a random direction away from them.

“Oh, no, we’ve lost Eren!”

“Nooo, come back!”

“Think of the children, Jaeger!”

Theatrically emotional cries of his name follow alongside exaggerated tears and chuckling from the enablers amused at his plight. All of which he pointedly ignores with steadfast determination.

...He really needs new friends.

(And, no, that’s not a stupidly sappy smile on his face.

Absolutely _not_.)

Ø

If there’s a single place that the new recruits know how to locate through the vast and confusing grounds, it’s where the food is at.

Sweaty and coming down from their exercise highs, they’re quick to find their way towards the mess hall. Lured by the prospect of food, they don’t lose their way.

Beside the doors to nourishment is a large corkboard with various papers pinned to it. Eren spies a schedule for the week’s duties and chores but doesn’t have the time nor the attention span to check the other posters as he’s whisked away with his friends into the cafeteria.

“Oh, Goddess,” he hears someone curse, “it smells _good_.”

Their rations here better when compared to the food at the boot camp—well, if they can call half-spoiled fish and shriveled vegetables “food”. Even the best cooks in his batch had to pray like crazed Wallists if they wanted to salvage whatever good taste their ingredients had left.

A benefit of being a soldier is daily meals, but there’s no guarantee that the food’ll actually be any good.

They all queue for their share in a single, fast-moving line. Their breakfast meal comes in the form of a decently sized fish swimming in broth, half a potato, and a piece of ( _hot and steaming!_ ) bread.

Eren takes his seat among his friends, surrendering to Mikasa’s fussy inspection and enjoying Armin’s light chattering on the new cliché romance novel Bertholdt recommended him. He picks apart his fish and removes the tiny bones hidden in its meat as conversations pick up around him.

“What do you think they’ll make us do during, ah, first period?” Connie asks.

“Maybe they’ll blindfold and kick us off Wall Rose to fend for ourselves,” Ymir says. “Leave us to marinate for a week before they check on who’s still alive. Or maybe toss us into bandit territory. Or both.”

“You mean like _that_ training exercise, but make it more dangerous?” Jean raises his eyebrows, referring to That Outdoor Navigation Exercise (capital letters absolutely necessary) when their gear was pilfered and Krista was held hostage. Not exactly a fun time, but a memorable highlight of their training years, nonetheless.

“Fuck no.”

“No, thanks.”

“ _Lizard_.” Sasha sighs dreamily. “I think we should go hunting in the forest again, then share another one of those huge lizards.”

“ _Without_ the gangsters, please,” Marco adds quickly.

“I dunno guys about you guys,” Eren says lightheartedly in the spirit of reminiscing on the taste of cooked reptile meat and the thrill of surprisingly effective teamwork, “but the bandits definitely added a bit of excitement to the drill.”

Jean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, my favorite moment is when you got socked in the face and had a bigass bruise for weeks.”

That makes Eren scowl and bring a hand up to his cheek, unconsciously wincing at the memory. “Except for that part, asshole.”

As the others carry on with their ideas of what their first activity in the corps can be, Armin asks Eren, “Will you get pulled out during drills?”

Eren lightly trails a finger down to his chest where one of his harness’ buckles would be had he worn it. “Yeah.” He sighs, disappointed. “I may not like it but I’m on pullout for two weeks at the very least.”

Mikasa pats his back reassuringly. Armin makes a sympathetic noise.

“I’m sorry,” Bertholdt says.

“Not your fault.”

Not like it was _him_ that threw Eren around the Trost skies like a ragdoll. In Eren’s humble opinion, Bertholdt has a _terrible_ habit of apologizing for things that aren’t his doing, which is a bit baffling considering he was busy avoiding projectile Titans when the Armored Titan came, for Maria’s sake.

“So what’ll you be doing instead?” Armin inquires.

At the same time, Mikasa taps Eren’s soup bowl with her spoon and utters a soft, “Don’t forget to take your medicine.”

Eren dips his bread into the broth, nodding at Mikasa that yes, he won’t forget to do so when he’s done eating. “Observation and strategy stuff is what I’ll mostly be doin’. Or so I’ve been told. Mr. Miche says that the ones overseeing us have already been informed and that I have to just look for any member of his squad.”

“The tall blond with the mustache, right?” Nac asks.

“Yeah.”

“I hope he’s not too strict,” Marco tries to speak it into existence.

“So far, he seems cool. But I _do_ know that Ms. Hange is awesome so you don’t worry about her,” Eren directs the latter part to Armin.

Mina gasps. “Isn’t that Section Commander Zoë’s first name?”

Eren nods affirmatively.

“They all introduced themselves by their first name during drills, but it feels a bit awkward to call them by anything but their last,” Marco muses aloud. “It’s like trying to call Instructor Shadis ‘Keith’.”

A beat.

The new recruits cautiously look around as if the intimidating man will appear out of thin air at the invocation of his name.

And they relax.

“I fear him more than I fear Titans,” Sasha boldly proclaims.

There are murmurs of agreement and no one disputes her declaration. Scary as Titans may be, they’re all dumbasses crazies that willingly chose to join the military branch with the highest mortality rate. And after surviving the Battle of Trost by the skin of their teeth, making fun of the Titans makes their job just a tad bit easier.

“Ms. Hange is nice though! Promise. Cross my heart, hope to die,” Eren says. Perhaps a bit eccentric and overwhelming to the average person, yes, but not at all malicious nor malevolent.

Armin hums at that, visibly relaxing at the enthusiastic vouch for the scientist. “If you say so...”

 _His and Ms. Hange’s combined intelligence will make them unstoppable_ , the brunet grins inwardly.

He has faith in their skills to crack the code that is the Titans, to trace back their origins and tear down the causes for their worthless existence from the inside. Each new discovery and observation made on those beasts is a step forward in the right direction, a bloody ascent to the top of the food chain they’ve been shoved under.

The conversation topic at their combined table keeps bouncing around after that. Not a single soul breaks the unspoken rule of not bringing up the upcoming expedition and the unsavory parts of the Battle of Trost, for no one wants to be reminded of the overwhelming number of challenges and odds stacked up against humanity.

Their stomachs filled and the atmosphere as high as it can be, it isn’t long before the hour comes to a close and they obey the command to reassemble back at the field.

Ø

Their first period after breakfast turns out to be a 3DMG assessment for them, the newbies. They’ll all soon be placed into squads with their seniors and potentially transferred into different divisions according to their strengths and weaknesses.

Eren’s been told to watch and be on the look-out for areas of potential improvement, any and all mistakes so he knows not to repeat them himself. Additionally, his own evaluation will be _after_ he’s recovered.

(Hmph.)

Standing on one of the many elevated platforms with Mr. Miche and Ms. Nanaba, he eagerly anticipates for his friends to come by this area of the forest.

Seeing things from an outsider’s perspective does actually help when he makes mistakes in the air. After all, how can he improve if he doesn’t know _where_ to improve at? He learned that the hard way after one too many painful tumbles during boot camp.

The Training Corps’ standards vary, with guidelines vague that instructors can interpret statements like “mastery of necessary skills to become a proper soldier” to mean anything from “not a troublemaker” to “able to perform three consecutive headache-inducing loops using the 3DMG and perform a sharp corner turn afterwards”. The South, being closest to Wall Maria’s breach and the area where Titans prowl at the most, has the strictest set and its trainees are subsequently saddled with mountains of regimens meant to whip their asses into top shape.

Each soldier has their own unique way of using the gear and flying through the air. Similar to how everyone has their own fingerprint and handwriting, everyone has a preference in how they use their equipment alongside their environment.

“They’re comin’,” Eren says, vibrating with excitement at the sight of dark silhouettes coming to their location. He readies his clipboard at the same time Nanaba prepares to pull on the rope mechanism for the Titan standees.

The sound of hooks embedding themselves into trees and of wires being reeled in grow louder, gas exhaust overpowering the natural rustling of leaves and the hum of birds. It’s easy to get immersed in the feeling of flying. There’s a thrill that comes with every leap of faith, every small arc, and every reshooting of hooks.

“Ackerman and Reyes. Behind them, Dulka and Hoover,” Miche discerns.

Mikasa soars like a graceful bird in their direction, a destructive force that flies by and takes out a few dummy napes in its wake without a second’s pause. She glides as if she was born with the gear, glancing at him for a second before she swerves away from a Titan that Nanaba reels in.

‘ _Agile. Maximizes opportunities to kill when Titans are near one another. Deep and swift cuts_ ,’ are some of the words Eren writes under her name.

“Ackerman lives up to her reputation, alright,” Miche says conversationally. “Color me impressed. Eren, quote me that her form is near perfect.”

He obliges and nods even though the man’s back is turned to him. “You’ve heard of Mikasa, sir?”

“Yes—”

An unfamiliar recruit nearly smashes into a cut-out and Eren winces because that was _such_ a close call. He can almost feel the impact himself. Meanwhile, Miche merely sighs and, before he goes off to talk with that specific scout, tells Eren to take note of that person's blunder.

Taking over the conversation, Nanaba points at the rookie in question. “Eren, what could Reyes, the one in a blue shirt, have done better?”

Eren zeroes in on the person in question, watching as that recruit tears through a foam nape with an excessive amount of force, maroon bits and pieces flying from the swords’ impact. As Miche calls for them, their head snaps up and they obediently fly over to an elevated platform across from Eren to have a talk. There’s evidently a lot of pent-up stress being released in each of their strikes, which would be fine in moderation but...

“...They’re overthinking,” he eventually says after a silence of stewing in and jolting down his thoughts to organize them. “Thinking too hard, like the gear is a machine—a tool.”

Nanaba peaks at what he’s written down and nods approvingly. “Good. So what should Reyes do?”

“They should be... should be seeing the gear as an extension of themself. Brute force can blunt their blades and cause them to smash into something—which they almost did—so they should develop and practice more with their sense of drifting. Their instincts.”

Eren’s gotten better at the gear over time, but hasn’t quite mastered gliding as smoothly as, say, Reiner or Mikasa. He isn’t easily disoriented by sharp turns and has enough stubbornness to power through minor bursts of dizziness when performing spins, but he has more moments than he’d like of overshooting and relying too heavily on the gas to propel him forward. When traced, his paths in the air come out as rough jagged lines, not smooth curves as they should be.

Reyes is using the gear like he himself used to during the early stages of training, when he was pathetically desperate to get out of Mikasa’s wide and overbearing shadow. He’s had many encounters that were inches away from disaster and injury, fueled by frustration and impulsivity without sparing a moment to reflect on what exactly he’s doing wrong.

While not all are capable of understanding the fine numbers and calculations of physics (the topic isn’t extensively taught outside of prestigious Sina academies anyway), every person has an innate sense for roughly computing force and velocity.

Like when someone tosses a ball at Eren and it’s up to him predict where it’ll land. When someone throws a bad punch during drills and he has a chance to use their momentum and disequilibrium to knock them off their feet. When someone does a rushed landing with their gear and needs to roll to minimize the impact that’d otherwise be fatal.

This sense can be sharpened into a wicked blade that can cut down opposition. It’s an art of being in tune with one’s body and having awareness of one’s center of balance.

“... _I_ used to be like that,” Eren finds himself confessing. “And I still kind of am.”

He managed to wrestle down his anger issues and beat (most of) them into submission during his early months as a trainee, but that doesn’t instantly make him a prodigious master at all the classes.

“Everyone starts somewhere. That’s why we vets are here, we’re here to help,” Nanaba says.

She yanks a large rope to move a Titan dummy. It spins around with a screeching noise, and she wastes no time in walking to pull on another pulley.

“During Trost, my team and I were going to our positions when we were ambushed by an Abnormal barely a few minutes into the field,” he tells her. “We had plenty of close calls with getting eaten... Do you have any tips on how to avoid or minimize that from happening, Ms. Nanaba?”

With Bertholdt and Dulka still a good distance away, she gives her full attention to him, face pensive and considerate.

“While there are too many factors outside of our control, having situational awareness is the only advice I can give you. Look at the bigger picture. Instead of the one, _single_ nape you have to slice or the one, _single_ location you’re moving towards, think of your entire surroundings.”

Nanaba holds up a finger, wiggling it in a circular motion. “If you do a spin to your right, will you end up in another Titan’s hand? Will you bump into your teammate? Will you waste gas because your next target is to the left? Will you put yourself at risk of ambush by flying too high?”

As she says this, Miche makes his reappearance and lands with a _thump_ near them, his eyebrows raised and visibly intrigued by Nanaba’s enlightening lecture.

“...It’s a lot to take in when you only have a few seconds to think, but it’ll soon come as natural as using the gear. We can’t predict Titan behavior to a T, so we can only hope to mitigate further disaster.”

Miche nods as he approaches them. A man of few but meaningful words, he gives Eren his own simple piece of advice:

“Don’t just look nor stare. _Perceive_. Ask yourself and consider it carefully: What do you see?”

Eren nods and dwells on this, losing himself to his thoughts, which his two seniors give him the space to do. He leans against the tree’s trunk with his fingers thrumming against his thigh. He takes in this fruit of knowledge from the experienced veterans, particularly Miche’s question that summarizes it all, and finds himself thinking back to the Battle of Trost.

Reflecting, there are many ways it could’ve gone worse, and also where it could’ve gone better. Was his squad too hasty in charging towards their position? If he saw that Abnormal earlier, then Thomas wouldn’t have lost a leg in the first place. Did he waste too much time staring at the Colossal Titan when those precious seconds could have been used in taking it down?

In the upcoming expedition, he should be more mindful. He can’t account for others and they’re all humans that make mistakes, but tunnel vision is a parasite that’s difficult but _possible_ to get rid of.

It’s easier said than done if he says that he wants to work on his impulsivity but he’s... working on it.

A wave of frustration and irritation threatens to overcome him. If only it can be that simple. Looking at the bigger picture is hard but looking at the bigger picture _objectively_ is harder.

_What do you see?_

Eren slaps a hand to the side of his head, wincing at the sudden ringing in his ears.

His forehead throbs, and he digs his blunt fingernails into his scalp to ground himself. A wave of nausea sweeps over him and bile rises in his throat. There’s a heavy weight on his shoulders, something fighting against the natural rise and fall of his chest.

_Who do you think the enemy is?_

“ _Enemy_?” he repeats, bewildered.

The fog in his mind clears.

Blinking, he looks down at his hands, rough and worn from the years that have been more than cruel to him. Despite his uncertainty of the question’s source, he mulls over it anyway.

There are many evils out there, many monsters that just _look_ like humans. Traffickers... slavers... the complicit privileged in Sina... the king who does nothing for his starving people...

But the main one? The largest foe that they’re up against? The one that needs the most attention, the most manpower, and the most energy to defeat?

Who else, but those goddamned Titans?

His emotions swirl in his chest, heart pounding against his ribcage in a crescendo of burning impassioned resolve as it beats in the eye of the merciless hurricane. With his fist he clenches on to that blazing energy and willpower as if it was corporeal, a tangible force.

Remaining in a negative mindset and calling every single task difficult is an obstacle that only hinders him from really looking at the bigger picture. He shouldn’t fall into the trap of complicity nor of mediocrity when there’s so much of the world and future ahead of him.

He prods at his own inner demons:

_Why did I join the scouts in the first place? Why did I choose here instead of the cops? Why did I endure the hell after Maria fell in the first place?_

“I’m gonna _destroy_ them,” Eren reminds himself of his motivation, his drive, his _mission_.

For his mom and those that died five years ago. For his dad and the souls who’ve gone missing and fallen through the cracks of society amidst the chaos. For Armin’s grandfather and the lives lost during the Purge. For Tom and Ruth and Franz and Hannah and the many people that died at Trost. For every single scout whose body decays with every passing year that humanity remains caught up in this bloody war.

“Every last one of those animals that’s in this world.”

**_To be continued. . ._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I picture that Connie speaks like one of my fave YouTubers, Jacksepticeye, who was born and raised in midland Ireland. I don't watch Jack as often anymore, but I enjoy his videos and he gave me a lot of comfort when I was growing up.
> 
> If we're basing the gang's language (Eldian) off of English, I think the standard dialect would be Standard American English. Erwin's "Sina accent" would sound similar to English spoken in London England (think... Harry Potter, the typical "posh accent" with airy R's). I feel like the nobles of Sina would speak in a manner that sounds distinct from the "commoners".
> 
> Just felt like sharing my headcanons skfjdls Have you ever wondered why Eren is so levelheaded here compared to canon? Goddess, look at all the foreshadowing in this chapter. Phew.
> 
> This chapter was getting long so I chopped half of it for the next one, but the ending works nicely so it's fine HAHAH And my writing muse has finally returned to me! I've been building a habit of writing everyday and enjoy every second of it. :D
> 
> And with that—Welcome, new and old readers, to the beginning of the 57th Expedition arc! Thank you, really, for all your support. Imagine my surprise that we've risen to 5.6k as of me writing this note hnfkjhgkfd Where did you people come from? Is it the Season 4 hype resurrecting the fandom???
> 
> To any Russian-speaking readers, someone was kind enough to offer to translate this fic, which you can find [here over at their Ficbook](https://ficbook.net/readfic/10234969). Please feel free to check it out!
> 
> I'd love to know all your thoughts, theories, and reactions. :0 Thank you for reading and I hope you all have a nice day!

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on my [Dreamwidth](https://kadotoriku.dreamwidth.org/) or [SNK Twitter](https://twitter.com/kadotoriku).
> 
>  **NOTE (Feb. 25, 2021):** Hi! I'm not dead despite suddenly going AWOL, promise. Updates are roughly supposed to be once a month, but I'm not so sure when Ch 6 will be since school is occupying most of my time and my current semester is ending. Don't worry though, we'll be seeing Ereh, his friends, the veterans, and even a lil bit of the MP duo (Reiner and Annie) in the next part! Thank you for all your support. I'll be replying to comments soon. Please have a nice day. :)


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